Games

Since we play a fair few games in our unit, I thought it would be a good idea to have them all in one place so you can find them easier! I will link this page whenever I post about a game and this will help you re-locate it if you decide to play it with your unit!

'The Chair Game'

• Every girl sits on a chair in a circle (she must remember which chair)
• A leader then picks something (e.g. brown hair or brown eyes) and all girls who have this move one chair to their right
• If there is someone in the chair, they sit on their lap
• If there is someone sat on a girls lap, she can't move until they have moved on
• The winner is the first girl to get back to her original chair 

  

The Card Game

• You will need a desk of cards for this game 
• Sit the girls on chairs in a circle and have them put a shoe under the chair so they don't forget which is theirs
• Go round the circle naming the girls after the 4 suits (if you have a multiple of 4 girls, add in a leader/YL)
• Shuffle the deck of cards 
• Turn the cards over one at a time and call out the suit
• All girls named after that suit stand up and move one chair to the left, sitting on the lap of the girl already there
• If they are being sat on, they cannot move
• When you get to a Joker, any girl who is able to move can move
• The wimmer is the first person to make it back to her original chair

 

 Chinese Charades

• Girls stand in a line one behind the other. 
• The one at the back is given an action (e.g. playing tennis, making a sandwich, fishing)
• They then tap the next girl on the shoulder, who turns around
• They then have to mime the action to that girl
• She then turns round and mimes to the person in front of her
• When it gets to the front of the line, the last girl has to guess what the action was supposed to be 

 

Coaches

• Each girl needs a partner and a chair (use a Young Leader if you have an odd number of girls)
• The leader (or a couple of girls) needs to choose a list of words, one for each pair of girls, and write a short story around these words, trying to use each word the same number of times. For example, for a CHristmas story, you could have: 'lamb', 'Jesus', 'Mary', 'kings', 'stable' etc.
• Sit the girls in two lines, one behind another so they are opposite their partner, facing the front
• Give each pair of girls a name (one of the words chosen for the story)
• Read out the story, pausing when you get to one of the chosen words
• When a pair's word is called out, they have to get out of their chair, run down the middle of the two lines, touch the wall at that end, run back up th outside of the chairs, touch the wall at that end and then run down the middle back to their space
• Two of the leaders need to keep score for the teams - the first girl back in each instance gets a point for her team
• If you want to make it harder, don't pause after each word (the girls then have to be paying attention!). You can also have a word for everyone goes. and the point goes to the team who has everyone sat down first
• Once you reach the end of the story, add up how many points each side has and crown your winner! 

 Fishes

• Have the girls stand in the 4 corners of the room in equally sized groups
• Choose two girls to be 'sharks' who stand in the middle of the room
• Each group chooses a name. The names can be anything from actual fish (i.e. carp, salmon, plaice etc.) or a made up one (one's we've had include kelpie-fish, bubble-fish and many more imaginative ones!)  
• A Leader/Young Leader calls out two of the groups and they have to swap corners while the 'sharks' try and catch people by touching them on the arm or shoulder  
• The girls who have been caught then sit out at the side (we once said they all became sharks too but it was absolute chaos!) 
• The Leaders need to keep track of how many times each group has run (otherwise the girls feel it's unfair) and also how many girls are left in each group. 
• The last group with people still in are the winners.

 

Get The Keys

• The girls all sit in a circle with one girl on a chair in the middle. 
• The girl on the chair is blindfolded and has a set of keys placed under the chair
• Choose a girl from the circle, silently
• The other girls have to sit in absolute silence (can be a challenge with some girls!) while the chosen girl walks once round the circle and then to the middle and picks up the keys without the girl on the chair hearing her and pointing at her
• If she gets the keys then she becomes the girl on the chair and if she is heard then another girl is chosen from the circle to try and get the keys. 
• It is easiest to play this game when there is total silence as, when it's a little noisy, it's far harder for the girl on the chair to distinguish between noise from the chosen girl and any outside noise and so makes it easier for the chosen girl to get round unnoticed

Honeypot

• All the girls sit in a circle around a chair
• One girl is chosen to sit on the chair and she is blindfolded
• A set of keys is placed under the chair - the more keys on the ring, the harder the game
• All other girls are instructed to be silent and another girl is chosen silently
• The chosen girl stands up from her space, picks up the keys, walks around the circle once and sits back down in her space
• The whole unit then puts their hands behind their backs
• The blindfold is removed and the girl in the middle has 3 guesses to pick the girl who has the keys behind her back.

Horses and Jockeys

• Pair up the girls and get them in a circle, facing inwards, with one girl kneeling in front of the other who is stood up
• The kneeling girls are horses and the standing ones are jockeys
• A leader shouts out "Horses", "Jockeys", or "Horses and Jockeys"
• The named girls then run once round the circle, clockwise, back to their space
• The last girl to get back is out, along with her partner

Iranian Smiling Game (Original Version) 

• All the girls stand in a circle and are not allowed to smile
• One leader can smile and then she wipes the smile off her face (using her hand) and then passes it to someone else
• That person is allowed to smile and then has to wipe off her smile and pass it to another girl
• Anyone who smiles when they haven't been given the smile has to sit down
• You will need all the leaders to watch the girls carefully and be ruthless if you have a large unit or the game will never end!

 

Iranian Smiling Game (Alternative Version)

• Get the girls to stand in a circle
• Choose one or two girls who step into the centre of the circle
• All the other girls have to keep a straight face while the chosen girls move around the circle trying to make girls smile
• If any girl smiles (even if no one is trying to make her) she sits down and is out (you need to have a few leaders spotting smiles - and be ruthless)
• If the chosen girl can't make a girl smile after a set amount of time, they swap places so the other girl then moves on to the next girl in the circle
• If you have a few girls left who cannot be made to smile at the end, let some of the girls who are out try and make her smile as a group instead
• The only firm rules we have are 'you're not allowed to touch them' and 'you have to be looking up with your eyes open'. Other than that, anything goes!

 

Lighthouses

• Choose one girl (who doesn't mind being blindfolded) and sit her on a chair at one end, blindfolded. The other girls line up against the opposite wall
• Get each sixer and seconder to get a chair and place it somewhere in the middle of the room
• The girls have to get to behind the girl on the chair silently and the girl on the chair shines her torch at anyone she hears moving (you need to have a strong torch and make sure it is on and pointed down before you start the game - the girl then just needs to point it in the right direction to get someone out, rather than turn it on which gets more complicated as they forget if it is on or off!)
• If a girl is hidden behind a chair when the torch is shone, she is safe but, if not, she is out and returns to the start to start again

Pirates 

• Stand in the middle of the room and name the walls like you would on a ship: left = port, right = starboard, front = bow, back = stern
• Call out instructions as below and the last to do each one is out (do a few practice runs first)
• When you shout a wall name, they have to run to that wall
• Climb the rigging - pretend to climb a ladder
• Scrub the decks - kneel down and rub the floor with a hand
• Captain's coming - line up in front of caller (in a single file line) and salute, saying 'aye aye captain'
• Man the lifeboats in [number]s - get into groups of the right size, sit on the floor in a line and pretend to row (all girls not on a correct sized boat are out)
• Man overboard - get into twos and cling onto each other
• Pirates are coming - hide anywhere in the room, you can't come out until 'Pirates have gone' is called (leaders, call a different action first and anyone who comes out to do it is out!)
•  There are many more options for actions, you can make up as many as you like but start with a few simple ones and add them one at a time

Sharks

• The girls sit in a circle, holding the parachute, with their legs out in front of them
• One girl is chosen to be the shark - she goes underneath the parachute
• Two more girls are chosen to be lifeguards - they stand up and let go of the parachute
• Make sure the remaining girls are spread out evenly around the parachute and tell them to shake the parachute up and down to simulate water
• The sharks job is then to pull a girl underneath the parachute by her ankles
• The girl being pulled shouts "help" and the lifeguards run round the circle and try to pull her back out
• If the shark succeeds in pulling her under then she also becomes a shark 
• You may need some leaders to step in after a while to keep the parachute pulled in a circle 

 Shoe Bomb

• The girls sit in a circle 
• One girl is chosen to be the detective and she goes and stands in a corner, facing away
• The girls all remove one shoe and put them in the middle
• A leader picks a show to be the 'bomb' and makes sure the girls know which one it is
• The detective comes back into the circle
• She has to give all the shoes back to their rightful owner
• If she picks up the 'bomb' all the girls start counting down from 10 loudly
• The detctive wins if she gives all the shoes back before they reach zero

 

Splat

• The girls stand in a circle with one girl in the middle
• The girl in the middle points at another girl and says 'Splat'
• The girl who was pointed at has to duck and the two girls either side points at each other and say 'Splat'
• The slower of the two is out and sits down in her spot
• This continues until there are only 2 girls remaining in the circle
• They then stand back to back
• A leader says various words beginning with 'S' and the girls take a step forwards on each
• When the leader says 'Splat', the girls have to turn around and 'Splat' each other
• The fastest girl wins 

 

Trains

• Have all the girls stand in a circle
• Two people (can be girls or leaders) make an arch with their arms at some point in the circle
• The girls then run round the circle and under the bridge
• Another leader, facing away from the circle, called out 'stop' and the bridge closes (bring the arms down)
• If a girl is trapped under the bridge (or touched as the bridge falls) then she goes to a different place in the circle and makes half a bridge
• Repeat!
• Gradually the number of bridges increases and girls are got out quicker (other leaders may need to keep an eye out for any disputes) and the final girl is the winner

 

Wigwams

• Have the girls stand in pairs in a circle
• One girl should sit, cross legged on the ground facing into the circle and the other should stand behind her with her legs open (like an Indian sat inside a wigwam)
• A leader then calls "The Indians come out to play", at which point the girls who are sat down crawl out through their partner's legs and start to run clockwise around the outside of the circle
• The leader then calls various other instructions as the girls are running: "the wind gets faster" (girls run faster), "the wind gets slower" (girls run slower) and "the wind changes direction" (girls run the opposite way)
• After a few instructions, the leader calls "the cowboys are coming!" at which all the girls must run back to their original partner in the same direction they were already running, crawl under their legs and sit cross legged in front again
• You can either play it so the last person back is then out and has to remain in their wigwam or you can play it as we did where we just kept swapping so the wigwams could have a turn at running too

 

Wink Murder

• The girls sit in a circle
• One girl is chosen to be the detective
• The detective goes and stands in a corner of the room (or just outside if possible)
• A leader chooses a girl to be the murderer by silently pointing at her. Make sure all the girls know who the murderer is
• The detective comes back and stands in the middle of the circle
• The murderer has to wink at girls to kill them (girls can die however they choose but must then be laid down. Leaders may wish to say girls have to die quickly and fairly quietly if it gets too rowdy)
• The detective has 3 guesses to pick out the murderer
• The murderer then becomes the detective and the game continues