Indoor Game; All Ages; 10 or more kids
Last year my wife worked as a receptionist for a company and did a lot of odd jobs besides answering the phone and directing customers. One afternoon I showed up at her workplace to surprise her with lunch and saw a pile of trash bags she was filling with shredded paper. I saw the pile and thought, “There’s no way we can let all that go to waste. It looks like too much fun to play in!” I couldn’t help but think back to being a kid when jumping in a big pile of leaves was the best fun a kid could have. (Of course, the neighbor’s didn’t appreciate their hard earned piles being destroyed punk kids like us.) So my wife got permission for me to take the 13 trash bags of shredded paper to church and here’s what I did:

At our lock-in that weekend, I dumped all the shredded paper in a huge pile in the middle of the room. After forming the students into several teams and giving them each a couple rolls of clear packing tape, I instructed the teams to pick one person to be the human snowball and the rest to cover them in tape, sticky side out. When the alloted “wrapping” time was up, I gave the command and each of the sticky kids jumped into the paper and covered themselves with as much paper as possible. When “rolling” time was up, they got out of the pile of shredded paper and a couple judges deliberated on which team had the most paper stuck to their “ball.”

A couple warnings:

• Make sure the wrapped kids’ arms are free so they can brace themselves. We had to send a kid to the hospital for stitches because he fell on his face and couldn’t brace himself.
• Be careful about paper dust. I was surprised how much there was and it actually ruined my video camera within 60 seconds.

Here are some pictures from the game:

SUBMIT YOUR GAME: If you have a favorite youth group game, tell me about it. If I publish it, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

Indoor Game; All Ages; 10 or more kids
I accidentally ran across this game on my computer while searching for something else. Dunno where I originally got it from, but the document was last modified in 2004, so it’s a couple years old. Sounds like a fun game!

Alphabet Game
Fill a little paper bag with strips of paper, each with a funny sentence written on it. Each sentence must start with a different letter of the alphabet. (For example, “Aardvarks sure do look tasty” and “Boy do you look terrible!”) Fill another little paper bag with numbers. Everyone picks a number. The two people who picked the 1 and 2 go first. Player 1 picks out a slip of paper with a sentence on it and reads it aloud. Player 2 must respond with a sentence that starts with the next letter of the alphabet AND makes sense. For example, player 1 says, “Stop! You have a turtle on your shoulder.” Player 2 responds, “That turtle is my pet.” Player 1 replies, “Under what circumstances should you have such a strange pet?” and so on. The first person who either responds with a sentence that does not start with the following letter of the alphabet or who can’t come up with a sentence within the time limit (like 10 seconds or so) loses. Players 3 and 4 then battle one another. When all people have gone, have the winners battle one another. You could also do this with two teams going against one another.

Here’s the list I apparently wrote up for my youth group a while back:

• Aardvarks sure do look tasty
• Boy do you look terrible!
• Can you fit your whole fist in your mouth?
• Dunking graham crackers in pickle juice is my favorite!
• Everyone looks pretty fantabulous today
• Finding Nemo is the worst movie ever!
• Good going, look what you did!
• How is it possible to have a civil war?
• I like how it tickles when the hair on my legs stand up.
• Just you and me now, pal!
• Kaite told me that yellow snow tastes better than normal snow.
• Let me see you lick your nose
• My toenail polish is prettier than yours!
• Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
• Ostriches are very flexible.
• Put your spandex on and let’s go running
• Quiet, my imaginary friend is talking.
• Ritchie is the cutest boy ever!
• Sucking on your toes is yummy.
• Tickling Pastor Rol is not recommended.
• Understand that my name is NOT Seymour Butts!
• Very few midgets can run faster than 10 mph.
• While you were out I decided to…
• X-rays make me feel invisible, like Big Bird!
• Yesterday I talked with a guy whose breath was worse than Tim’s!
• Zip along there, speedy little fella!

SUBMIT YOUR GAME: If you have a favorite youth group game, tell me about it. If I publish it, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

Indoor Game; All Ages; 10 or more kids
We just played this last night at Sr. High youth group and had a blast! Split everyone into teams of 5-8 kids and give each team a mattress. Instruct the teams to select one person to be the surfer. Everyone else are the “rollers.” Line up the teams at one end of a large room and have the rollers lay side-by-side underneath that mattress with the surfer on top. When you start the race, all the “rollers” roll together toward the opposite end of the room, carrying their surfer on top. In order to make it across, when the last roller is free that person jumps up and lays down in front of the mattress and continues to roll until he/she is the last roller, at which point they repeat the process again. The surfer may not touch the ground at any time. If they do, the team must go back to the starting line and start over. The first team to reach the opposite wall and return back to the starting line wins. Any pushing or pulling of the mattress if strictly prohibited.

Here’s two pictures of the game from my cell phone camera last night:

SUBMIT YOUR GAME: If you have a favorite youth group game, tell me about it. If I publish it, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

Indoor Game; All Ages; 12 or more kids
This is a fast, active game that works better with larger groups (12 or more people) and needs a fair amount of space that students run around.

Supplies needed:
One Rubber Chicken

How to play:
Divide the group into 2 equal teams. Give one team the rubber chicken. As soon as you say “go” the team that has the chicken quickly lines up behind the person holding the chicken and the chicken is passed over one person’s head, under the next person’s legs, so it goes over, under, over, under all the way to the end of the line. Then the whole team yells “Chuck the Chicken!” Meanwhile, the other team (the team without the chicken) gets into a huddle when you say “go” and one person runs around the huddled up team as many times as they can before the other team chucks the chicken. It’s a good idea to have a leader counting how many times the youth runs around their team — this is how many points that team gets during that round. As soon as that team hears the other team “chuck the chicken,” they stop huddling/running and they all run over to pick up the chicken. They then line up and do what the first team did (chicken over, under, over, under), while the other team does what they just did (huddle and have one person run around while another leader counts their points). You do this for a pre-determined number of rounds. Three or five rounds have worked out well for our group. The team with the most points at the end wins!

Thanks, Abi!
This game is provided by Abi Bourckel, a youth worker in Ellicott City, Maryland. Check out her blog at “Not all who wander are lost…”

SUBMIT YOUR GAME: If you have a favorite youth group game, tell me about it. If I publish it, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

Outdoor Game; All Ages; 20-30 kids
Wawa Man is probably one of my all-time favorite games! It’s a combination of Football and Capture The Flag rolled together as one.

Setup
1. Setup a field like the image below. We used lots of old tires to outline the field, jail and safe zone, but you can just as easily use cones or whatever. The jail should be small enough to be a tight fit for all the kids on one team. The safety zone should have a diameter of about 15 feet.

2. Cut a twin size sheet in half across the width.

3. Take two 4-square balls and wrap each one in half of the sheet like a lollipop wrapping, so the ball looks like the head of a cheap Halloween ghost. Bunch the sheet together underneath the ball and seal it tightly with a zip tie. When you cut the excess zip tie off, make sure there are no sharp corners or edges. Say hello to your Wawa Man.

4. Make two teams and assign each team to a side of the field.

5. Place a Wawa Man in each safety zone.

Objective: Get the other team’s Wawa man to your side of the field.

Rules
1. Once you cross the mid-way line onto the other team’s territory, you’re free game to be caught by someone on the other team and sent to jail. Determine beforehand how to catch someone. We like to play tackle with high school students, but you can also play two-hand touch, although the games take a LOT longer. (Only girls can tackle girls, but anyone can tackle a guy.)

2. Prisoners must stay in jail until one of their team members makes it safely to the jail and tags a captive teammate. Prisoners get a free walk back to their side of the field, but the valiant hero is still free to be captured.

3. If someone makes it safely across enemy territory and reaches the Wawa Man, they may stay in the safety zone for as long as they want. There is also no limit to how many teammates may occupy the safety zone together. Opponents, however, may not enter the safety zone.

4. When attempting to take the Wawa Man back to your territory, the Wawa Man must not touch the ground. If he does, he is returned back to his safety zone. The Wawa Man also cannot be passed forward, only lateraled backwards between teammates. If you are tackled/tagged outside the safety zone while holding the Wawa Man, you go to jail and the Wawa Man is returned to the safety zone.

5. Play as many rounds as you want. When it’s all over, have fun listening to all the “heroic” stories kids have to tell! The Wawa Man will become a symbol of pride and bragging rights for your group.

Bonus idea: Playing in a muddy field is the best! It’s also fun to play in the snow on a nice sunny day.

SUBMIT YOUR GAME: If you have a favorite youth group game, tell me about it. If I publish it, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

I love youth group games! I start every large-group youth meeting with some sort of game or fun activity and sometimes end with one, too. They generate excitement, let kids burn energy, teaches them to work together, gets them interacting, relaxes visitors, and plus they’re just plain ol’ fun!

Games can be a vital aspect of any youth meeting, so I’m going to introduce a new blog feature to Life in Student Ministry called, Favorite Youth Group Games. Once a week or so I’ll feature one my favorite youth group games and how you can effectively use it in meetings. However, I am continually learning from others, so if you have a favorite youth group game to submit, I’d love to have you cover it here as a guest blogger. Just send me your game post, a picture of yourself and a link to your blog if you have one. You’ll get full credit, of course, with a link to your site.