Group Games - Page 5 of 13 - Youth Workin' It

5 Great St Patrick’s Day Activities

February 18, 2013 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

St Patrick's Day activities If you’re looking for some St Patrick’s Day activities, check out these 5 ideas that are great for doing with kids and teenagers:

Activity 1 – Green Things

This youth group game can be done by splitting the group into smaller teams. Give each team a pen and paper and have them list as many different green items that they can think of.

This could include obvious things (like frogs, bottles, etc) to more vague things (bags, paper, etc). You might want to have some catch-all categories for things like vegetables and fruit, rather than them listing 50 different fruits and vegetables – that doesn’t have to be the case though.

Before the game, make a separate list of 10 green items of your own. Award one point for every green item that each team has listed, with them earning 3 bonus points for each item that is the same as one on your own list.

To save you time, here are suggestions for what items you could use for your own list:

Boogers
Bottles
Dishwashing Liquid
Eyes
Frog
Guacamole
Incredible Hulk
Nail Polish
Paint
Statue Of Liberty

Activity 2 – Green Food

The second of our St Patrick’s Day activities is to have the youth make all kinds of different green food. This could include ingredients that are naturally green like fruit, vegetables, pistachio nuts, Jell-o, etc, but you can easily jazz up other ingredients for St Patrick’s Day.

Just get some green food coloring and add it to milk, rice, mashed potatoes, eggs (for green eggs and ham!) and more.

Activity 3 – Pot Of Gold

For this youth group game, you’ll need some pots (or buckets), masking tape and gold coins or chocolate coins.

Put a line of masking tape on the ground. Split the youth group into teams and have them stand in lines behind the tape. About 10-15 feet away, put a pot in front of each team and then give each team the same number of coins.

Team members should take it in turns to try and throw the coins into the pot/bucket. The team that manages to land the most of their coins in their pot wins. If using chocolate coins for the game, you could give those as a prize.

Activity 4 – Scavenger Hunt

Organize a St Patrick’s Day scavenger hunt for your group where they have a list of items that they have to collect – what gives it a St Patrick’s Day theme is that all the items they find have to be green.

You can find a more detailed explanation of how to organize this scavenger hunt here, where you can also download a free printable list.

Activity 5 – Go Green

Our final suggestion is to get your young people to go green by doing some kind of environmentally friendly activities. Plant some trees, do a litter-picking fundraiser, have a recycling drive, etc.

Question: What kind of St Patrick’s Day activities are you doing with your youth group? Let us know in the comments below.

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How To Play Bowl Hole – Water Relay Games

February 11, 2013 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

This week’s game is a great outdoor water relay called Bowl Hole. These types of youth group games are always loads of fun to play as they love the competition, as well as the opportunity to get wet.

Here’s how to play Bowl Hole:

Resources

Foam / polystyrene bowls – one per team, with a few spares
Buckets – 2 per team
Water
Measuring jug
Towels
Pen

Preparation

Take half of the buckets and fill them to the top with water. Place them in a row with approx. 2 yards between them
Take the other buckets and place them in a parallel line about 10 yards from the water-filled buckets
Using the pen, make a hole in the bottom of each of the foam bowls

Teams

Split the youth group into teams of a similar size – it doesn’t matter if they’re not an exactly even size. Have each team line up behind one of the buckets of water.

Rules

The first person on each team should be given a foam bowl with a hole in the bottom. When you say “Go”, they have to fill up the bowl with water and carry it to the other bucket, tipping the water in that.

They then have to run back and – because it’s a water relay game – pass the bowl to the next person in line who’ll do the same thing.

Needless to say, they’re not allowed to cover the hole so this will probably require some monitoring from your volunteers to make sure there’s no cheating going on! They can hold the bowl with both hands though to ensure there’s minimal spillage over the sides.

If you want this water game to be as wet as possible, have an additional rule that they have to carry the bowl above their head!

Play this for a specific amount of time – about 5 minutes should be good, but it could be longer if they’re enjoying it and they have enough water in their buckets. Make sure that everyone gets a chance to participate though if you have a really large youth group.

Winners

The winning team will be the ones who manage to transfer the most water to the other bucket. This might be obvious just by looking at how much water is in each bucket but if not, use the measuring jug.

Tip

Have some spare bowls available in case any get broken during this game.

If you liked this idea, check out all our other games, including a number of other water relays.

Question: Have you ever played Bowl Hole or a similar water relay game? Did you organize it in a different way? Let us know in the comments below.

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Water Balloon Toss – Youth Group Games

February 4, 2013 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

The Water Balloon Toss is another of those great youth group games that gets young people completely soaking wet.

It can be played anywhere outdoors that’s large enough, but it’s a particularly good game for youth retreats where you’re likely to be in a wide open space and the youth will have a change of clothes on hand.

Here’s how to play Water Balloon Toss:

Resources

Water balloons
Bucket
Rope, duct tape or cones
Towels

Preparation

Fill up the water balloons and put them in a bucket of water to ensure that they don’t burst early. For this game, you’ll need one balloon for every two players, plus a few extras in case any do burst in the bucket.

At one end of the playing area, mark a line using the rope, duct tape, cones or whatever you have available to you. This isn’t essential, but can help ensure the young people don’t try to cheat.

Teams

Split the young people into pairs. Make sure you get all your volunteers involved as well – your youth will love to see them getting soaking wet too!

How To Play

The Water Balloon Toss works in exactly the same way as The Egg Toss:

Have one person from each pair stand behind the line that’s laid out on the ground
Their partner should stand about two yards away, with them both facing each other (see image below). They should also be about two yards away from the people to their left and right, providing there’s enough space
One person from each pair is given a water balloon
When the game starts, they have to toss the balloon to their partner who has to catch it without it bursting
If a balloon bursts, that pair is out of the game and should stand to the side
For the remaining players, the row of players that isn’t behind the line should take a step back
The side that has the balloon should then throw the balloon back
Continue the game with the one side taking a step back every time their pairing makes a successful catch

Winner

The winning pair is the one that manages to get the furthest from each other without their balloon bursting.

Additional Tips

Have someone count to three before the water balloons are tossed, so that all the players throw at the same time
Also have someone keeping an eye on the row of players that moves back to ensure that they’re all an equal distance away from their partners
This game can be over quickly, so prepare double the amount of water balloons if you want them to have another chance of playing
When there’s just one pair left, let them continue the Water Balloon Toss to see how far they manage to get from each other
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to take photos or video footage of this game. Make sure that you have photo release forms completed if you want to publish the photos anywhere (including Facebook)

If you liked this water balloon game, check out all of our other water games. We also have loads of other great games, so there’s no need to ever be short of fun youth group activities!

Question: Do you use any different rules for the Water Balloon Toss or add anything in to make it even more fun? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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Valentine’s Day Games For Teenagers

January 28, 2013 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

It’s not long until February 14th, so here are 3 Valentine’s Day games for teenagers that can be done with an entire youth group.

1. Set Your Heart Racing

Resources

Drinking straws
Red tissue paper
Scissors

Preparation

Cut heart shapes out of the red tissue paper – one heart for each team.

How To Play

To play this youth group game, split the group into teams of the same size, with at least five people in each group if possible.

This is a relay game, so have the teams stand in straight lines all facing the front of the room. Give each person a drinking straw and a heart to the first person in each team’s line. The aim is for them to transfer the heart from one end of the line to the other (and back again if you only have a small group) using only the drinking straw.

Here’s how they should do this:

The first person sucks through the straw to keep the heart at the other end
They pass it to the second person in line by having them use their own straw for suction
The first person stops sucking
The second person turns round to the next person in line and the process continues

Rules

If the heart falls to the floor, the last person to have control of it has to pick it up using their straw – no hands allowed!

Winner

The first team to get their heart from one end to the other.

2. Head-Two-Head

Resources

Post-it-notes
Pens

Preparation

Write names of different celebrity couples on post-it notes – you’ll need one couple for every young person in the youth group.

How To Play

Put a sticky note on the forehead of each of the young people. They then have to go around the room trying to work out who their celebrity couple is.

Rules

They can only do this by asking Yes or No questions – no open questions are allowed. For example, if one of the couples was Beyonce and Jay-Z, the youth might be able to work it out by asking questions like:

Are they still alive? (Yes)
Are they over 50 years old? (No)
Are they sportspeople? (No)
Are they singers? (Yes)
Are they both in bands (No)

They wouldn’t be allowed to ask questions like:

How old are they?
What type of music do they do?
What type of hairstyle do they have?

Winner

The first person to work out their celebrity couple. Keep going with the game though until everyone’s managed to work out who their famous lovebirds are.

3. Valentine’s Day Scavenger Hunt

This final Valentine’s Day game for teenagers will have them looking for a list of different Valentine’s Day-themed items.

This game might take a little more planning, as you may need to recruit extra volunteers to drive the young people around to collect the items. Another alternative would be to organize it as a photo scavenger hunt and play it at the mall.

For full details of how to plan this and a free downloadable Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt list, check out our sister site here. There are also many other scavenger hunt ideas on that site that are perfect for youth groups.

Question: What other Valentine’s Day games that are suitable for youth groups do you know of? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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Water Balloon Relay – Youth Group Games

January 21, 2013 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

This week’s addition to our collection of youth group games is a water balloon relay – fun to play, simple to organize and potentially very, very wet!

Here’s how to play the Water Balloon Relay:

Resources

Water balloons
Buckets
Markers of some kind (e.g. cones, chairs, duct tape, etc)
Towels

Preparation

Fill up all the water balloons and place them in the buckets (one bucket per team)
Put the buckets in a line at one end of the playing area – this will be the starting line
Place the markers in a parallel line about 10-20 yards away from the buckets (depending on how hard you want to make it!)
Split the youth group into same-sized teams

Rules

Have each team line up behind a bucket of water balloons. The first person from each team should put one of the balloons between their legs.

The challenge is for them to move to the other marker, go round it and then return back to the starting line. They can try to do this by jumping, shuffling, waddling, crawling or any other possible movement.

The only restrictions are that the water balloon must remain between their legs and they’re not allowed to use their hands to touch the balloon (other than when placing the balloon between their legs at the beginning).

As this is a relay, when they get back to the start line, the next person on their team does the same thing.

Options

Due to the nature of this youth group game, there’s a good chance that players will get very wet due to the balloons bursting while they’re in the race. If that happens, there are a few options you can choose to enforce:

1. One strike and you’re out!

If a player bursts their balloon, they’re out – the next player on their team then has their turn.

2. Three strikes and you’re out!

Similar to the first option, a player gets three opportunities to complete their leg of the relay race. If choosing this option, a player has to continue from where they burst their water balloon.

If choosing this option, try to have volunteers on hand to give them replacement balloons – that will help ensure they continue from the same spot. It also means that you’ll need to prepare three water balloons per player in advance, just in case.

3. Unlimited Do Overs

With this final option, players get as many opportunities as they need to complete their leg of the relay. They have to continue from where they burst their water balloon.

Again, try to have volunteers on hand to replace the burst water balloons. One thing to bear in mind is that you’ll need to prepare a much larger number of water balloons. If a player uses too many on their turn, it could result in some players not getting a chance, so this isn’t recommended unless you have a small youth group and lots of balloons!

Winner

This will depend on which of the three options above you choose. With both the one and three strikes options, the winning team will either be

The one that has the most players complete their leg of the race without using up their allocation of balloons, or
The fastest team to finish if all their players make it round with a balloon intact

If playing the unlimited do overs option, the winning team is the one that finishes first.

Prize

If you want to offer a prize, an option that the youth will love is to let the winners throw the rest of the balloons at the leaders!

If you liked this idea, check out all our other game ideas.

Question: Have you ever played this water balloon relay? If so, did you add in anything else or have different rules? Or can you think of any other good prizes/rewards for the winners? Let us know in the comments below.

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