[bread man]

I've been asked to organise about 90 minutes of games for this Friday night and I don't really know what I'm doing. Does anyone have any good ideas? We're averaging about 50 kids a week at the moment, so they'll need to work for a group that size.

Thanks!

[relient nelson]

One unique thing I've done is organize a glow stick war.. buy two or three hundred glowsticks (should run you around 20 bucks, depending on where you buy them) take your kids outside, and set it up as kind of a water balloon fight type deal. Or you can organize dodgeball using the glowsticks. There are tons of variations on the idea, but its very cool to see 300 glowsticks thrown into the air at once!

[rock_show_host]

My old youth group once played a massive combination of Never Have I Ever and musical chairs -- we made a circle with enough chairs for everyone minus one person, and that person stood in the middle and named something they hadn't done, like "Never have I ever been to Canada." At which point everyone who has ever been to Canada had to jump up and find another seat, and the last person standing would have to go again. It's a fun way to learn some unexpected tidbits about people in the group (like that our male youth group leader has shaved his legs on more than one occasion).

I second the dodgeball mentions too -- a 50 person game of dodgeball is intense. Although I've never done it with glowsticks. *ponders*

[bread man]

Originally Posted by rock_show_host

My old youth group once played a massive combination of Never Have I Ever and musical chairs -- we made a circle with enough chairs for everyone minus one person, and that person stood in the middle and named something they hadn't done, like "Never have I ever been to Canada." At which point everyone who has ever been to Canada had to jump up and find another seat, and the last person standing would have to go again. It's a fun way to learn some unexpected tidbits about people in the group (like that our male youth group leader has shaved his legs on more than one occasion).

Thanks for both of the suggestions. I used this game and expected it to run for about 20 minutes. It went for nearly an hour and a half, and all the kids groaned when I told them we had to finish because their parents were arriving to pick them up. I had a bunch of other games planned and ended up not needing them. I was so surprised. We ended up having 57 kids tonight and every single one of them played the game...that alone is pretty impressive.

I really like the glowstick idea, I'll definitely keep that one in mind for future events.

[bravesfan007]

Musical carpets is where it's at. Play it like musical chairs only uses pieces of carpet. If you can find some that are about four feet by four feet, that's great. Then, after you stop the music you can start folding the carpet. The participants are allowed to continue to play if they have their foot on the carpet. It gets complicated as the squares get smaller and smaller. It's a blast though.

[dogfood]

Originally Posted by bravesfan007

Musical carpets is where it's at. Play it like musical chairs only uses pieces of carpet. If you can find some that are about four feet by four feet, that's great. Then, after you stop the music you can start folding the carpet. The participants are allowed to continue to play if they have their foot on the carpet. It gets complicated as the squares get smaller and smaller. It's a blast though.

ah, we do a similar game here in new zealand, except we use old telephone books or pieces of newspaper, which can be made smaller.

[bravesfan007]

Originally Posted by dogfood

ah, we do a similar game here in new zealand, except we use old telephone books or pieces of newspaper, which can be made smaller.

Yeah, anything will work. We just happened to have a lot of extra rugs laying around at the time.

[guitarman531]

Dodgeball is always awesome. Capture the flag is also fun.

a cool variation on dodgeball that I've seen is where--if you get hit with the ball--you immediately switch teams, not just sit out.