Learn The Books of The Bible
Here’s a twist –Bible Tic-Tac-Toe : Divide kids into two teams–boys vs girls or mixed groups. Everyone must have a Bible and it must be closed before game begins. Teacher calls out a scripture verse. The first one to find the verse and starts reading it first gets to mark their x or o for their team on the board. This encourages the kids to learn where the books of the Bible are and helps them get over their fear of reading aloud. You can give hints from time to time, like whether it is in the old or new testament, etc.
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Home Number Reveals Age!
So, you want to find out a person’s age. Forget about the stars. Here’s a fun way of finding out a person’s age in three easy steps from their phone number.
1) Ask the person to reverse the last four digits of their phone number to produce a new 4-digit number. Subtract this new number from the phone number, or vice versa, depending on what number is smallest. Don’t ask for the result!
For example, a phone number such as *** 4567 would become 7654, so subtract 4567 (the smaller phone number) from 7654 (the larger new number), leaving a result of 3087.
2) Ask the person to add together the digits of the resulting number and to repeat the procedure until only a single digit number remains. Don’t ask for the result!
In our example, 3267 would become 3+0+8+7 = 18, and 18 would become 1+8 = 9 (a single-digit number).
3) Finally, ask the person to subtract this single digit number from the last two digits of their year of birth. Ask for the result!
You will then be able to tell them their age, and the year in which they were born!
How does it work?
The final number remaining from the calculations in 1-3 is always 9. Therefore secretly add nine to the result they give, and you will be able to tell them their age! Try it out on someone who doesn’t really want to reveal their age to you – such as your teacher.
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Basket-Baseball
SUPPLIES NEEDED: Masking tape, newspaper rolls, crumpled up newspaper balls. A long table.
Form two teams. Give team 1 newspaper batons or bats and give team 2 a large supply of newspaper wads. Put a table sideways on the floor for a goal. Measure a 6-foot radius from the table’s edge, and make a circle around the table with masking tape. Have members of team 1 lie on their backs with their heads toward the table and their feet toward the tape. Have members of team 2 sit cross-legged around the outside of the tape. When you blow the whistle, kids on team 2 should try to throw the newspaper wads into the table while kids on team 1 guard the table with their newspaper bats. After 30 seconds, blow the whistle and count the wads in the tub. Then switch sides.
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Guess The Gargle
All it requires is a glass of water. Secretly show a volunteer the name of a well know song or tune, it can be anything, chart song, worship song, nursery rhyme etc. Get them to take a sip of water and they must gargle the tune and the others try to guess what it is.
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Name That Tune
Before the game, arrange to have someone bring in a musical instrument such as a violin, guitar, etc. You can also use a piano or organ. Have the kids’ line up according to the number of years of music or voice lessons they’ve had (most to least). Count them off by twos to form two teams that have approximately the same musical experience. The object is to quickly guess songs your teammates play on the selected instrument. Teams will take turns having a volunteer play a song on the instrument for his/her team to guess. The volunteer chooses the song to play. Keep track of time for each team and the least time wins after several rounds have been played. If it isn’t guessed in 30 sec., the other team gets one guess. If that team guess incorrectly, 5 sec. are added to their total time
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Musical Squirt Gun
Source: Play It! – Great Games For Groups, Can be played with a group ranging from 6 – 30 (can also be played outdoors). Group sits in a circle on chairs or on the floor. A loaded squirt gun is passed around the circle until the music stops or the leader says “Stop!” The person who is holding the squirt gun at the time must leave the game, but before he leaves, he can squirt the person on the left twice or the person on the right twice or each person once. The chair is removed, the circle moves in and the game continues. Last person remaining is the winner. The gun must be passed with 2 hands and received with 2 hands. It is best to have another loaded gun standing by for when the 1st runs out. Emphasize only 2 squirts!!!
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On The Wall Charades
* Source: Low Cost, No Cost Ideas For Youth Ministry, page 15
Before the game create a list of one or two syllable words. Clear a large space on the wall and form 2 teams. Have each team choose a representative to start the game. Explain to kids that you’ll show their selected team members a word that they must convey to their team. Tell the kids that they must convey the word in only one way: by using their heads as imaginary pencils to spell the words on the wall. Play several rounds so each team member gets a turn at writing on the wall. The team that’s able to guess the correct answers in the shortest amount of time wins
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Pinball Soccer
Source: Play It! – Great Games For Groups,
New way to play soccer indoors! Just like regular soccer except that each person, including the goalie must stand on a piece of paper. They must keep one foot on the paper at all time and cannot slide or move the paper. The players need to be scattered evenly across the playing area. The effect is like a giant pinball machine.
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THE “UH” GAME
Challenge to kids to talk for 30 seconds on a subject without saying “uh” or “um” or having a long pause. On slips of paper, write down the subjects, and put them in a paper bag. Have the child that volunteer to try it pick a subject out. The MUST use that subject, no matter what. Use subjects like:
cars – trucks – dolls – food – pizza – riding the bus – the Bible – your Sunday School teacher – your room – flowers – baking a cake….etc. You can make up your own
You can also play “Bible UH” where you use Bible characters on the slips instead of the objects above. Use very familiar people in the Bible so even the smaller kids can play.
If the kids says “UH”, everyone on the bus says “AAHNNN” like a buzzing sound. Give small prize to kids that are successful.
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Counting Game
This game works well if you have a long bus route. Have the bus divided up, one team on left side of bus, one team on right side. As you are running the route, have the kids look for and count the designated items. One person in front of bus is the captain and keeps the score. The bus Captain is the judge. You can only count the items one time. In other words, if you go around the block or turn around, it can’t be counted again. The team with the most counted wins. You can say you are going to count until you get to a certain place, (like the church) or for a specific time.
Here are some things we have counted:
Trucks – Red Trucks – VW Beelte bugs (punch bugs) – dogs – cats – yellow houses – anything like that.
During holidays, we count things that pertain to that holiday:
Halloween – real pumpkins (not paper) – etc
Christmas – manger scenes – angels – etc.
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JESUS SEZ (SIMON SEZ)
Play the game just like Simon Sez, but use only motions that the kids can do sitting down: “Jesus says touch your nose…Jesus says pull your ear…stop touching your nose…YOUR OUT!!
The kids that you call out must stop playing until that round is over. Give a small prize to the winner and start over again. Make sure you go slow enough for the little kids!
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Statue Game
The statue game is an old one that we have used many times. Tell the kids they are to be statues. Statues don’t move. Statues don’t blink. Statues don’t talk. STATUES DON’T EVEN BREATH!! Tell the kids to wiggle real hard for 15 seconds and then stop. Start looking for kids that are statues. Call “out” those that you see move. If you are on the bus, do not count the movement of the bus against them. You will usually have 2 or 3 kids that will tie at the end. Give a small prize for the winners. Let them wiggle a while and start all over again!
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Copy Cat
This is one that the kids love! We do this in K.I.D.S. church about every 6-8 weeks. While I am out of the room, my wife tells the kids they are going to play “Copy Cat” with me. When I come back in the room to get things started, I begin to talk in short choppy sentences. Whatever I say, the kids repeat. It goes something like this:
(remember, the kids are repeating everything I am saying below)
O.K. lets get started
What?
Wait a minute
Are you copying me?
Fuzzy, they’re copying me
You need to stop!
I said stop!
Ok,
when I count to 3
you are going to stop.
one
two
(I’m throwing my fingers up as I am counting, then I throw the 3rd finger up without saying three and the kids will says “three”.)
Three
(Then I turn my back away from the kids and say to myself, but they can hear, “man, I’m glad that’s over”
Hey, I said it’s over!!!!!
I’m the boss of this church!!!!
No I am!!!!
I am!!
That’s it
I’ll fix you
Copy this (then I will talk as fast as I can so the kids can’t follow me and they are just blabbering)
You sound like this (then I put my finger between my lips and move them up and down like a baby would make a noise)
You’re weird!!!!!!
No your’re weird!!!!!!!
I’m not weird!!
You’re weird!!!
We’ll go like this for a couple of minutes.
My wife has to stop them because they WILL NOT STOP. She gives them the “time out” signal with a “T” motion of the hands. They have to agree to stop when she does that