Mixer: The purpose of a mixer is to do just that, mix people up - to get students to connect, move outside their comfort zone, to laugh, to get acquainted and have fun. This is the first step towards breaking down barriers for peripheral students and lost students.
Silent Football: (There is no real football. It's only called that) Although this is a huge hit among guys, girls enjoy this too. Sounds complicated until you go one round.
Must sit in a circle with legs crossed. It is a violation to be caught with legs uncrosssed in some form.
Nominate a President. The President manages and rules the game but the President can also receive points for mis-conduct and loose the game. Otherwise what the President says, goes.
In a circle, the President reviews the rules.
Set a time frame for the length of the game (normal is 30-45min.) It can go on for 1or 2 hours.
How to Pass the ball = Smotace (Smote-us) the smotace is a pass. To pass, ball up a fist with right hand, place left hand on bicept, with the fist touching the forhead with elbow ponting towards the person you are passing the ball to.
The pass is recieved by the person who was smotaced by that person passing the ball to someone else.
A second form of passing the ball is a Thwack! To thwack the ball a person must use either their right hand with right leg or left hand with left leg. With hand out front, palm down, the hand moves slowly right and upward in a swoosh (semi-circular) motion. The hand must not touch anything on the upswing and go as high as the shoulders. On the downswing, the hand must slap the leg. If you do a left handed Thwack, you must use the left hand and left leg. A Single Thwack must go up touching nothing and come down smacking the leg gently only ONE time (thus the single Thwack) A Double Thwack is simply an immediatle repeate of a Single Thwack.
If the player does not want to receive the ball when passed to him/her, he she can Shrug the ball off but only twice during the session of a live ball. A Shrug is simply that; shrugging the shoulders in an exagerated manner.
During this time the ball is being passed and during the game, there must be total silence (no verbal noice, gas, laughing, talking, etc.)
When a player wants to report a violation, he/she must raise their hand and wait to be recognized by Mr. President. Once recognized, the accusing player must speak without using a pronoun. (ie: I, me, you, them, they, ours, myself, or anybody) Use of a pronoun is a violation. If this happens, a person raises their hand and Mr. President will recognize the player by calling the player by their proper name (Mr. Jones) If a student's name is Jimmy Jones, then they are reconized only as Mr. Jones. If a person refers to a player in any other form other than the proper Mr. or Miss, or Mrs. then a foul may be reported.
To report a violation, a player raises his/her hand and waits for Mr. President to call upon them (using only proper name) ie: Yes Mr. Jones.
Mr. President must be addressed twice in the beginning of an accusation of a playing violation. For example, you hear a player laugh. You raise your hand, Mr. President recognizes you and you say: Mr. President, Mr. President,
Mr. President or a neutral player can keep score. One point is awarded for every violation. Two or more points can be awarded for larger outbursts or excessive violations, whining, not participating, etc.
At the conclusion of the game, the losing players are given a TASK (losers task) to complete within 48 hours. The worse the points the worse the task. If a loser refuses to complete the Losers Task, he/she can no longer play SF.
Examples of Losing Taks: (underware wedgie, singing in a resturant, write a poem to recite in public, wear strange clothes to youth group, pledge their love to someone. It can be just about anything you want to push the envelope with or get by with outside the comfort zone but not too humiliating)
1st place
2nd place
3rd place
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Wall Street
Gather together some bills from a monoply game or make some on your PC. Give each person a $5 or $10 bill. (you can just use pennies if you choose) Stuents then compete to win as much money as they can from their peers by challenging them one of the following games.
1. Thumb wrestling
2. Rock, paper, scissors
3. Flipping a coin
If there is a tie, both are loosers.
_______________________________________________________________________ Appointment
Create a clock with twelve hour blanks. Give a copy of this clock and a marker to every student. The hands of the clock act as blanks for the students to write each other's names on. Everyone goes around and has to 'make an appointment' with someone who has an opening at the same 'time' you do on your clock card. You go around till you fill out all 12 spots with names. After everyone is done, the leader declares the time, 3 p.m., time to find out who your appointment is with. They find this person and then have to answer a pre-determined question such as favorite fast food, desert, etc. Keep the appointments going until the group is mixed up real well.
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Barnyard
This is an oldie but goldie and used to help divide youth into teams. Hand out pre-made cards , enough for every student. Come up with as many animals as you want to have teams. (If you want four teams, have four animals). If you predict 35 kids that night make forty cards, four groups of ten. Each group of ten cards will have a particular animal written on it (so you will have 10 chicken cards, 10 cow cards, 10 donkey cards and 10 pig cards). Hand out cards randomly to the kids and tell them to not tell anyone their animal. When you give the signal, have them make the sound of their animal as loud as possible until they find their entire group. First group to totally find each other wins.
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CandyBar Competition
This game works as a crowd breaker for large groups. Gather a few distinctly different types of candy and tape them under the chairs of your audience before the meeting. Keep in mind when deciding how many types of candy you use that you will want the teams to be as evenly numbered as possible. Have your MC explain the activity as follows:
1. Groups must look underneath their seat, grab the candy bar (or individually wrapped small candy), and then find the other people in the room with that candy bar.
2. Once all team members have found their respective group, they must eat their candy and present their wrappers to one person on the team who will bring them all to the MC.
This gets the crowd up and interacting and provides a boost of energy to your meeting. It is also a good idea to have some high energy background music.
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Clothespins
Pass out about 4-5 clothespins per kid in the room and instruct them to pin them on their own sleeves. Explain that when the music begins, the object of the game is to get all clothes pins off themselves and on to someone else. Turn off lights and turn on strobes and music. (You may want to put girls on one side of room and guys on another; guys can get a little frisky sticking clothespins on girls).
When time is called, see who has the most and least number of pins on them. One girl winner and one guy.
Variation: Get florescnet pins or paint them with glow paint. Also, you can use a black light.
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Alphabet Acquaintance
As people enter the room, give everyone a pre-typed sheet of paper with each letter of the alphabet (x-optional) on the vertical left side. On go or as students arrive, let them find someone with the first name that matches the letter or they find out something about the person that matches the letter.
Example:
A_____________________________________________
B_____________________________________________
C_____________________________________________
D_____________________________________________
Everyone attempts to find out something about others that starts with one of the letters.
Examples:
Jamal broke his arm in 6th grade.
Alana plays basketball.
Nissa’s favorite candy is Snickers.
Evan’s dad is a dentist.
Put the person’s name and info on a line. Cannot use the same person for more than four times. Set a 5-7 minute time limit and see who has the most. Have several (small group, have all) people share interesting discoveries about each other.
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Musical Amoeba
Any size room. When the music starts students are to roam around like an amoeba (no direction, just floait around, mixing it up) When the music stops, the leader yells out a number like 7. Eveyone scrambles to get in groups of seven. The smaller the group the smaller the nubmers you will want to use. Ie: a group of 25 cant use a high number like 7 but once or twice. The students left without a group, are out and help ID the studetns left in the next rounds.
Variation: call out things like, height, hair color, eye colors, # siblings, shirt color, inee or outee belly button.
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Silent Challenge
Give everyone a number. They have to arrange themselves in numerical order by communicating with each other without speaking or holding up fingers. They make up their own sub-language or sign-language and it often is pretty amusing. For Round Two, have people arrange themselves in order of birth or in calendar months (like the game, Mute Organization).
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Three Stooges
Groups of 20-30 sit or stand in a circle. One person is in the middle and points to someone in the circle and says either “Curly,” “Mo,” or “Larry”. The person pointed to must respond with a name before the person in the middle can count out loud to ten. The name the person shouts depends on the name the person in the middle says:
“Curly”: say the name of the person on your right.
“Moe”: say your own name.
“Larry”: say the name of the person on your left.
If they succeed, the person in the middle stays and repeats the process with someone else in the circle. If they fail, they change places with the person in the middle.
After a while, you may want to add a second person to the middle. After five minutes, rotate half of each group to another group, or combine two groups and put a second person in the middle.
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People Bingo
Give out the Bigo card, made from the computer. In the blanks have phrases like
Likes Chicfila - likes to hunt - has a little bro. - brown hair - has been to Spain - likes oldies, etc. Student mix with music playing while finding others to fill thier bingo card slots. After 3 min. call for time. Let the studnets with the most blanks filled report on who they mey.
aother sample: Fill in the blank
- Find someone who has a birthday in February and have him/her sign their initials here. ______________________
- Find someone who has been to Colorado before and leapfrog over him/her. Then have the person initial here._____________________
- Get seven leaders to sign the back of this sheet.
- Find someone who has a birthday this month and sing "Happy Birthday" to them Have the person initial here.___________________
- Find someone to listen to you say "toy boat" ten times quickly. Then have them initial here.____________________
- Get three other people to link arms with you and do the cheer "lean to the left, lean to the right, stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!" Have each person initial here.____________________________
- Give someone your ugliest face and have them initial here.__________________
- With two other people, face the front of the room, put your hand over your heart, and say the "Pledge of Allegiance" in unison. Initial each other's papers.___________________
- Have someone tell you about the best Christmas gift they ever received. Then have them initial here.____________________
- Get a hair over 5 inches long from someone else's head. Let them pull it out. Have the person initial here._________________
- Give someone a backrub and have them initial here.___________________
- Find someone who has blue eyes and have them initial here.__________________
- Find someone who is left-handed and have them initial here.________________
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Four Couch
Depending on the size of your group, this game could work as an Up Front Game (for a large group—the group watches while a few do the activity in front of the group, entertaining the rest) or as a Mixer (for a small group—in a group of 8-12 kids you could involve almost everyone.
Create a circle with chairs and one couch, enough seats for everyone playing plus one extra seat. 2 girls and 2 guys start off by sitting on the couch, while everyone else sits in the chairs. Give every person playing a paper to write their name on. They are to turn their names in to you.
Mix the names up and redistribute them back to the youth, making sure no one gets their own name. They are not to tell which name they have. The purpose of the game is for the guys to get all 4 guys on the couch and the girls to get all 4 girls on the couch. The person to the left of the empty seat calls out a name of someone in the circle. Whoever is HOLDING THAT NAME (not the one whose name it is, i.e John calls Amy's name, and Jeff is holding Amy's name) gets up and sits on the empty chair. The person who called the name and the person who sat on the chair, then exchange papers with names on it (that way the same name does not stay with the same person, it makes it more challenging). The person to the left of the new empty seat calls a new name. (the same name cannot be repeated twice in a row).
Again, the purpose is for the guys to get the 2 girls off the couch and vice versa. This is a really fun game but it can last a long time.
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Mix It UP
In a circle with It in the circle to start the game. There should be a seat for eveyone except It. The leader (IT) will call out a category and students have to change seats with someone else in that same category. Cant move to a chair next to you. It must be at least two seats over.
Samples to call out: Students with flip flops, tennis shoes, brown hair, ate fast food today, hase brothers and sisters, painted toe nails, ate a salad today, has a liscense, owns a pet, etc.
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Who am I
Each player writes a name on a slip of paper and then passes it to the judge. After the judge receives all the slips, he mixes them up and writes the names on the board. The judge picks a person to start. This person chooses someone in the game and guesses what their name might be. "'Bob', I think you're Cinderella." If they are correct, 'Bob' is now on that person's team. Later, if that person's name is guessed, both they and Bob join the other's team.
That person continues to guess people's names until he guesses wrong. The last person he asks now gets to guess. Play continues until all but two players have been guessed. The winner is the player with the most people on his team.
If this is a new, unaquainted group, have people write their actual names so everyone can get to know each other.
If everyone pretty much knows each other, have people write funny, fake names (just be sure to remember them)!
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Name Game 2
Small group game. Provide pencils and index cards. As each person arrives have them write their name clearly on an index card. Tape card to their back.
Give everyone another index card. On "Go!" with hyped music in the background, everyone copies names off backs of other people, while trying to keep them from seeing the card on their own back.
Determine a time limit and give a prize to the person w/the most names on their card.
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Amnesia
Put the name of several famous persons or characters on several sheets of paper. Ask for volunteers. Let one person come to the front. Without them seeing the name, put the name of the famous person on their back. They then begin a 3 min. countdown to discover who they are by asking Yes or No questions. Ie: Am I alive, am I a dancer, a musician, white, athletic, married, etc.
When that famous person discovers who they are, get a new volunteer and start again.
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Name Tag Mixer
Before kids arrive, prepare name-tags by writing an easy-to-read number on each one. Also prepare slips of paper with instructions such as "Introduce #4 to #12, "Find out #7’s favorite pizza topping," "Shake hands with #5 and #13," and so on. Don’t use numbers higher than the number of kids expected. It’s better to make instructions for #1 to #10 and have duplicate name- tags for #1, #2, #3, and so on. Give kids a name-tag and slip of paper, then send them out to complete their assignment.
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Get to Know ME!
As students arrive, have all your students fill out an anonymous questionnaire. (ie: favorite band , My dream car is, etc. When ready to begin, pass the questionnaires out randomly (to someone different than the person who filled it out) and yell "Go!" Students have to walk around asking each other questions, trying to find whose questionnaire they have.
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Real Identity
Great "getting to know you" and memory game. Everyone is in a circle and each takes a turn saying their name and something about themself (example, "Hi, I'm John and I play football"). The next person needs to say the previous person's name and item of interest before saying their own (example, "He's John, he plays football and I'm Mary and I torture small animals"). As this game moves on, people need to remember more and more information. With bigger groups you can have them only repeat the names to save time.
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People Poker
Hand everyone a playing card as they come in. Begin the game by the leader calling out different combinations that they have to form a group. Example: four of a kind, a flush, two pairs, straight, etc.
Option: Once they get in their group, have them answer a pre-planned ice-breaker question. It could be something fun and related or unrelated to the discussion that night.
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Finger Count Race
Get youth in partners. Begin facing each other but with hands behind the back. On count 1, 2, 3 GO! On go, youth pull hands from around back and show the # of fingers they have out. They must add their partners fingers up and add them to yours. They call out the correct number to win. Who ever gets the count right. Note: tell you it is a lot easier if they will count the number of fingers they are holding out behind their back first before the count. Winners get a winning parnter and losers like wise.
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The Aroma Game
Provide 12 film canisters (or similar small containers) for as many students as you have playing. Fill film canisters with different smells. Try 12 different smells (12 teams of 4-5 students), and 5 canisters of each scent (one for each team member).
Apply scents on cotton balls. For example, tuna oil, sauerkraut, vinegar, limburger cheese - the smellier, the better.
On "Go!" with fun music in the background, have students find the 5 other people who have the same scent as theirs.
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Twister Testimony
Every 'spot' is numbered and a list of questions about one's testimony and faith corresponds to each number.
Examples: When did you become a Christian? How have you shown or been shown grace recently? And random questions such as, which do you prefer, Burger King or McDonald’s? And what's your favorite chat-up line?
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Thumb War: With music going and partners facing each other. Count down with the chant, One two three four, I declare a Thumb War. Go, the traditional thumb war is on. Time limit. Winners get a new winnig partner and losers do likewaise.
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