Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Girl Scout Cookie Game – Youth Group Games

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Girl Scout Cookie Game
This cookie truly is a thing of perfection

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…… nope, not Christmas – Girl Scout cookie time! In honor of these tasty treats, here’s a youth group game that uses the best Girl Scout cookies of all – Samoas.

Quick sidenote – in addition to her regular youth work job, Shae also leads 3 girl scout troops. She’s therefore organizing several cookie sales and our apartment has been stacked with cases of cookies – having this many Samoas and Thin Mints laying around is very dangerous.

Resources

  • Samoas
  • Drinking straws – these need to be fairly thin, but still quite strong

n.b. This activity can also be played with similar shaped cookies like Keebler Fudge Stripes in the US or Fox’s Party Rings in the UK.

Preparation

None

Teams

Split the youth group in to smaller equal sized teams – 5-10 players per team is best.

Instructions

Have each team stand in a straight line facing each other’s backs. Give each player a drinking straw and the first person on each team a Samoa cookie.

To play this game, they have to slide the cookie on to their straw. They then need to turn around to the next person on their team and slide the cookie down their straw on to the next person’s straw.

If they’re successful, the player with the Samoa on their straw turns around and passes it on to the next teammate. This relay continues until it reaches the end of the line.

If you only have a small youth group and therefore only have a few young people on each team, have them transfer the cookie back down the line to the first person to make the game last longer.

Specific Rules

  • Players aren’t allowed to touch the cookie with their hands unless it drops on the floor
  • If the cookie falls on the floor, it has to be put back on the straw of the last person who had it
  • Players can touch their straw, but only the section between their mouth and the cookie. If this ends up being to easy for your players, play the game a second time where they’re not allowed to touch the straw at all

Tip

Have some additional cookies available in case any drop on the floor and break during the game.

Prize

Give the winning team a box of Samoas to share.

If you liked this idea, check out all our other game ideas, including loads of other food games.

Question: What other girl scout cookie games are there? Let us know in the comments below.

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How To Play Bowl Hole – Water Relay Games

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Bowl Hole Water Relay Game
Don’t make Bowl Hole this hard!

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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Valentine’s Day Games For Teenagers

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Valentine's Day Games For TeenagersIt’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

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Water Balloon RelayThis 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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How To Play Spongehead – Water Relay Games

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Water Relay Game
Spongehead Potatopants

This week’s youth group game idea is Spongehead, a water relay that ensures all your young people will get nice and wet.

Here’s how to play it:

Resources

  • Large sponges
  • Large buckets
  • Small buckets
  • Water
  • Measuring jug
  • Towels

Preparation

Fill up the large buckets with water, put a sponge in each of them and set them out in a row – this will be the start line.

Put the small buckets in a row that’s parallel to the large buckets, but about 10-20 yards away.

Teams

Split the group into equal-sized teams and have each team stand in a line behind a large bucket.

Rules

The first person from each team picks up the sponge, holds it above their head and runs to the smaller bucket. They then have to wring the sponge to try to get as much water into the smaller bucket as possible.

Once they’ve done that, they run back and pass the sponge to the next person in line who does the same thing.

Winning Team

This will be the first team that fills the smaller bucket. If none of the teams manage to completely fill the smaller bucket by the time the larger bucket is empty, the winning team will be the one that managed to transfer the most water into the smaller bucket (using the measuring jug if necessary).

Tips

  • This water relay game will ensure that everyone gets completely soaked, so it might be worth letting the youth group know in advance that they may want bring a change of clothes.
  • Some players will try to avoid getting wet by not holding the sponge over their head. If you spot anyone doing this, make them go back and re-soak the sponge (or shoot them with a super-soaker)

If you liked this water relay game, check out all our other games for youth groups.

Question: What other elements would you add to Spongehead to make it even more fun? Let us know in the comments below.

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