Tag: Grades 1-3

What are you doing?

Setup:

Partner all campers and if an odd number, partner with AG. Then give an example.

  1. Player 1 starts miming an activity.
  2. Player 2 approaches Player 1 and asks `What are you doing?`
  3. The first player answers something that has nothing to do with what they are actually doing. E.g. if Player 1 is cutting someone’s hair, when asked what they are doing they might say “I’m reading the newspaper”.
  4.  Second player starts miming the activity stated by the previous player (reading the newspaper.) and Player 1 now asks, “What are you doing?
  5. Repeat steps 1-4 until game has peaked (should be 6-8 quick rounds depending on the group and work as a short warm up game to get laughs)

Note to AG – Really exaggerate/be silly with the “What are you doing?” sometimes to make campers laugh. Also choose fun or funny activities for your example to get the kids interested. If you do not have a partner, walk around and encourage (Wow! Oh my! That’s cool!) and provide suggestions if needed.

Video:

Wax Museum (a.k.a. Sneaky Statues)

Grade:

2-5

Setup:

1 Curator & the students acting out the scene

  1. Explain to the students that they are all statues in a wax museum. You, the teacher, are the curator.
  2. Explain that in the beginning, when the curator is in the room the statues do not move or speak. Once the curator leaves the room, the statues come alive and interact with one another. When the curator re-enters the room, the statues all freeze in their current position arid location.
  3. The curator reacts to these changes and may even begin to correct the obvious problems that have occurred while he/she was out. Some comments: “How could this have happened? “My statues must be melting. “I need to turn up the air condition.’
  4. The statues are now allowed to move while the curator is in the room; but you must not get caught. If at any time the curator sees you move, you are out and must remove yourself from the game.
  5. The last statue standing is the winner and becomes the curator for the next round.

Video:

Lemur Leader

Grade:

all

Setup:

Cones to mark the playing field, all campers in a line on one side. One camper is “Lemur Leader” in the middle

  1. Choose a player to be “Lemur Leader.”Lemur Leader stands in the middle of the field
  2. Line the rest of the players up on one side. Players chant: “Lemur Leader, Lemur Leader, may I cross the river?”
  3. Lemur Leader then decides who may cross the river based on descriptive attributes such as “Only if you’re wearing red.”(NOTE: Lemur Leader MUST chose a trait that more than one person shares. No singling campers out please )Those who were described by the attribute attempt to run to the other side of the field without being tagged.
  4. Those who are tagged also become “Lemur Leaders”
  5. Repeat until everyone has been tagged

Tip: For the first two or three rounds, you may want to be Lemur Leader so that the campers have an example. If you have younger campers you may want to continue as Lemur Leader (or co-lead with a camper by providing suggestions and support). If you have older campers you may be able to make one of them Lemur Leader sooner.

Video:

*Note in this video the game is called Uncle Sam. While it is the same gameplay and a great example, we have our leaders called Lemur Leader to stick with the Mister Lemur’s Adventures in Writing Camp Theme 🙂

Story, Story, You’re Out

Grade:

4 – 5

Setup

Everyone forms a line on “stage”

Objective:

Tell a story with a beginning, middle, & an end flawlessly

Players form a line on the stage. A title for a story, and a story genre is obtained from the audience. The MC starts the game by pointing to a player, who needs to start telling the story. At any point in time the MC can switch to another player, who needs to continue the story flawlessly, even if the switch happened in the middle of a sentence or even in the middle of a word.Players that hesitate, or whose sentences are not grammatically correct or don`t make sense, are “out.” The last player left ends the story.

Video:

Rabbit Tag

Setup:

Open space with cones to mark hutches

Grade:

2-5

Instructions:

  1. One player is designated as the “Hunter.” Everyone else is a “Rabbit”
  2. Set up “hutches” (cones) around the playing field. There should be two less hutches than there are rabbits. The hunter can only tag rabbits who are not at a hutch
  3. All but two rabbits start the game at a hutch. The hunter chases these rabbits.
  4. When a rabbit enters a hutch, he or she is safe, but the rabbit who was previously at that hutch must then leave the hutch. Only one rabbit may be in each hutch.
  5. When the hunter tags a rabbit, that rabbit becomes the new hunter

Video:

Pass the Name Game

Setup:

circle

Grade:

all

Everyone stands in a circle and the teacher will go first, saying their name and making eye contact with someone else while saying their name. Then the teacher will start heading over to that person and that person will then have to say the name and make eye contact with someone else in the circle and start to head over to take their place. You can make this game more complicated by starting another circuit while the first one is already in motion.

Lemur Telephone

Grade:

all

Setup:

line up campers evenly

  1. Line teams up by grade
  2. Counselors tell the first camper in each line a phrase.
  3. Campers then race to whisper their phrase to one another down the line.
  4. The first team to whisper their phrase to the front of the line wins.
  5. Have each camper at the end of their line say their phrase out loud and then compare with the original.

Video: