Turn an old game into something new and exciting for the kids. Grab the paper and the pens and get creative. Have a family fun night, play at a party or just for fun with your siblings. The game of charades never gets old.

What you need:

• a coin for flipping
• some slips of paper
• a pencil or pen
• a watch or stopwatch

Number of players:
4+

Activity:

• Divide everyone into two teams.
• When younger children are playing, it can help to pair an adult with the littlest members.
• Pick one team to go first by flipping a coin (to make it fair).
• The team who is not picked first then comes up with a secret word or name for the other team to guess.
• Favourite characters, movies or songs are best for younger players (and they have more fun acting them out, e.g. Bob the Builder or Hannah Montana).
• The secret word is then written on a slip of paper.
• The piece of paper is then shown to one member of the other team.
• This member is the ‘actor’.
• The rest of the team are the ‘guessers’ – but cannot be shown the secret word or name.
• Start the stopwatch, and wait for the rowdiness to begin!
• The actor will act out (almost miming) what is written on the piece of paper.
• They cannot say a word while doing so.
• They can act out, mimic, dance, even point – but they cannot speak or spell out with their hands the phrase.
• The group of guessers can yell out their answers.
• Your younger kids will have particular fun doing so!
• They will quickly learn to listen to all the guesses, and modify their answers from them.
• The actor can nod yes or no if they get one of the words right.
• Let them keep going until someone guesses it, or for about a minute.
• Once the whole phrase is guessed, that round is won.
• Or if the stopwatch ran out – the team lost that round.
• The teams switch, so the other team has a chance to act or guess, and the team that went first gets to pick the secret word or phrase.
• Whoever guesses the correct answer is the next actor when it’s their teams turn.
• Make sure you keep a tally of which team guesses the most correct answers, and announce the winners at the end.

Notes:

• A great game for parties.
• This game is not limited by a bigger group of players – in fact it’s more exciting and fun that way!
• Older kids will enjoy conventions of this game – syllables, ‘sounds like’, rolling through the alphabet.
• Brace yourself. This is not a quiet game – younger children in particular will love yelling answers as loud as they can. But you will have just as much fun watching as they will playing.

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