Life Group Activities

Hey leaders! FUN is so valuable! We hope that these games help you build relationships, create trust, and create a space students want to come back to. Here are a list of games and activities that you can do easily with your group. Instructions for the games are below in the same order listed.

 

Simple Group Game Ideas:

1. Who Am I?
2. Funny Face – (hilarious)
3. Signs and Signals
4. King of Mimic
5. Bear, Hunter, Ninja – (Think Rock, Paper, Scissors but way better.)
6. Heads Up – (Download the app)

Get to Know you Games:

1. This or That
2. Figure it Out
3. All Alike
4. Two Truths and a Lie

More Involved Group Game Ideas:

1. Fishbowl – (A Classic – Lots of students know it)
2. Four On A Couch – (Super Fun – Makes you think)
3. Celebrity – (Memory game)
4. Musical Chairs
5. Mafia – (Takes some creativity but always entertaining)
6. Pictionary – (See who is an artist in your group)
7. Spoons – (Fast paced card game)

Other Resources Available:

1. Board Game Box (Cards games and board games)
2. Sports equipment (spike ball, football, frisbee, volleyball)-depending on weather and space.

Simple Group Game Ideas:

Who am I?

Materials needed: Sticky notes

1. Write the names of someone famous or well known to the group on a Post-it note and stick it on the back of each person.
2. People then have to guess who is on their back by asking only yes or no questions.

Funny Face

1. Go around a circle. One person makes a funny face and the person next to you has to make the noise they think matches the face! Super silly and lots of laughs!

Signs and signals

1. Start by sitting everyone in a circle facing inwards.  Each person should choose their own unique ‘sign’ which is a movement or motion such as touching their nose, brushing their hair, giving two a thumbs up etc.  Go around the circle and give people the chance to demonstrate their sign to the rest of the group.
2. Choose someone to be the ‘guesser’. Get them to close their eyes whilst you choose someone in the circle to start the game.  The guesser can then open their eyes.  This person you choose to start then has to secretly ‘pass’ the sign onto another player without being caught by the ‘guesser’.  To pass, you must make your sign followed by the sign of the player you are passing to.
3. The game continues until someone is caught, then they become the guesser.
4. For younger groups, you can make the “pass” simpler by making people just do their sign and look at the person they are passing to.

King of Mimic

1. Everyone sits in a circle around one person in the middle. The person in the middle closes their eyes and everyone (without talking) identifies your king.
2. Once you chose your king, every person must mimic their every move so that everyone is doing the same thing.
3. Once the king is chosen the person in the middle can open their eyes and gets three guesses to identify who the king is in the crowd. If they don’t guess it in 3 another king is chosen.

Two Truths and a Lie

1. Everyone in the group has to think of three things to share about themselves – 2 must be true but one must be a lie.
2. When a person has shared their three things, the rest of the group must decide which of the 3 is a lie.  The person then indicates which one was the “lie”.

Bear, Hunter, Ninja – (Think Rock, Paper, Scissors but way better.)

No materials needed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baJz5VwUVNQ

1. Start back to back and on the count of three jump and turn around posing in one of three stances. The first is Bear with your hands above your head and fingers curled like claws. The second is Hunter with your hands in front like you’re holding a shotgun. The third is Ninja with your hands flat in front of you in a Karate like stance.
2. Bear eats Ninja. Ninja kills Hunter. Hunter shoots Bear.

Get to Know you Games

 

This or That

• Coke or Pepsi?
• Day or night?
• Text or phone call?
• Cats or dogs?
• Plane trips or road trips?
• Brunch or dinner?
• Coffee or cocktails?
• Movies or television?
• Mall shopping or online shopping?
• Writing or speaking?
• Big parties or small gatherings?
• Concerts or sporting events?
• Ocean or lake?
• Vacation or staycation?
• Car or motorcycle?
• Hammock or lawn chair?
• Ice cream or cake?

Figure It Out

1. Pick a player as the contestant

1. The contestant chooses a secret, and draws a number of blanks to signal the number of words in the secret
2. The panel asks yes or no questions
3. If a panel member guesses a word that appears in the secret phrase, the player writes the word in the blank
4. At any time, panel members can guess the secret. However, panel members must try to guess the secret at the end of a specified number of rounds.

All Alike

1. Divide your group into groups of 2 or 3.
2. The groups have five minutes to find a trait that all team members share. For example, “we all go to a public school,” “we all hate cilantro,” or “we all have aunts named Linda.”
3. Upon reconvening, the team members share that “all alike” characteristic.

More Involved Group Game Ideas

Fish bowl – (A Classic – Lots of students know it)

Materials needed: Paper, Scissors, pens, bowl or hat.

1. Divide the group into two even teams. Sit every other person.
2. Pass out 3 pieces of paper to each player.
3. Have each player write down 3 words or phrases. The words or phrases are the prompts, and they should be a person, place, thing, or feeling. Encourage players to choose words or phrases that are familiar and well known, as vague or obscure words will be difficult to use in the game. Keep the phrases short, no more than 2-3 words.
4. Collect the pieces of paper, fold them, and put them in the bowl or hat.
5. Set a timer for 1 minute.
6. Choose a person to start. Only the people on their team will guess. Once the minute is over, someone from the next team will go.
7. You can play 3+ rounds. Once all of the slips of paper have been guessed, the round is complete, and they all get added back to the bowl for rounds 2 and 3. After round 3 is complete, add up the total number of slips of paper each team has guessed from each round and the team with the most points wins!
   1. Round 1: Player can use both words and actions, without saying any words that are apart of the answer
   2. Round 2: Player can only use actions to get their team to guess the word.
   3. Round 3: Player can say only 1 word to get their team to guess the clue, so they must choose carefully!

Four On A Couch (Super Fun – Makes you think)

Materials needed: chairs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hvWV0qzf-o

Goal: Try to get four of your teammates on the  couch!

Preparation:

1. Four marked chairs or a “couch” that can fit four people. Four people must sit on the couch at the beginning of the game. Everyone else can sit on the ground in a circle or in unmarked chairs, with the outer circle boundary including the four special chairs/”couch”.
2. One piece of paper for every participant and pens
3. A bag to collect the pieces of paper

How to Play Four On A Couch

1. Split everyone into two equal teams and ask them to sit in a circle. Add one empty seat in the circle. When starting, each participant needs to sit next to his/her opponent on both sides (alternating team members), including the four people on the “couch”. Hand out the pieces of paper and pens (one per person). Ask everyone to write their names on their piece of paper and to put their pieces of paper in the bag.
2. After this, pass around the bag and ask everyone to draw one piece of paper with someone else’s name on it. Each person should read their own piece of paper without letting anyone else know what his or her paper says.
3. Explain that the goal of the game is to get four of their teammates on the couch. The person on the right of empty chair/spot calls the name of a game participant. The person whose piece of paper has the called name sits in the empty chair. Whoever sits on the right of the new empty chair calls out another name.
4. Start by asking the person to the right of the empty chair to call a name. The person with the piece of paper with the written name sits in the empty chair. Continue this pattern. The first team to have four of their members on the couch wins the game.

Celebrity (or family game)

Materials needed: Paper

1. Everyone gets a piece of paper and writes down one Disney character, animal, etc. (you chose the category) and puts it in a bowl.
2. One person reads through every paper twice in order (try to remember as many as you can).
3. Then, one person begins by guessing who one of the papers (Disney character for example) was written by – “Daniel, are you dumbo?”. If correct, Daniel joins that person’s “family” and they team up to guess others.
4. If you guess correctly, you get to guess again. Once you guess wrong, the person you guessed gets to guess next. Do this until every person in the room but 1 is guessed – the last person remaining wins.

Musical chairs

1. Play the music and have the players walk around the perimeter of the chair circle.
2. When the music stops, everyone must immediately sit in a chair.
3. The one person left standing it out.
4. Remove another chair and continue until only one person is left.

Mafia

Materials Needed: cards

Spoons

Materials Needed: Cards and Spoons

Pictionary

Materials Needed: Whiteboard or paper, Marker or pencil, Wordraw App.

1. Form two teams.

1. The teams must determine the following before beginning to play:
   • Time limit to draw (generally 1 minute)
   • Number of rounds or number of points required to win
   • If hand gestures allowed
   • If guessing part of a word counts as a point
2. Select one team to draw first. This is the first drawing team.

Gameplay

1. On the drawing team, select a player to draw first. For each new round, a different player will draw.
2. The non-drawing team will use Wordraw to select a word to draw.
3. Show this word to the drawing player. Do not show his/her team.
4. Once the drawing player has seen and agreed on the word, you’re ready to start the turn.
5. Start the timer and the drawing player starts drawing the word. No talking, letters, words or numbers are allowed. Symbols ($, +, etc.) and erasing are allowed.
6. The drawing team must guess the word being drawn. Any number of guesses are allowed.
7. The turn ends when the drawing team guesses the word or when the timer runs out. If the word was guessed correctly, the drawing team scores a point. If the word was not guessed, the drawing team does not get a point.
8. The next turn begins and the next team becomes the drawing team. Repeat the above steps.
9. The round ends when all teams have drawn once. Start a new round and repeat the above steps.
10. The game ends when the required number of rounds or points have been reached. The team with the most points wins.