Party games

[ladyofastolat]

I'm on the lookout for children's party games played at traditional children's parties. We've got a list already, but would like an even longer list, so they can be whittled down to the best ones. So far we've got:

Musical chairs
Musical bumps (I was unvanquished champion of musical bumps as a child, but the ground was a lot closer then. I suspect that playing it now would result in bruises and broken things.)
Musical statues, ideally in its Musical Monsters form
Pass the parcel
Sleeping/Dead lions (naming dispute ongoing)
Pin the something on the whatever
Grandmother's footsteps
Oranges and Lemons (although even as a child, I never quite worked out what the point of the game was, and it always took so long, and once the chopper who came to chop off my head thumped my nose, and I cried.)
What's the time, Mr Wolf?
Poor Pussy

Quite a few more games come to mind, but I think they're more playground games than party games - e.g. The Farmer's in his Den, Red Letter, I sent a letter to my love, etc. We always clamoured to play Murder in the Dark when I was little, but never knew what we were supposed to do, so just milled around in the dark for a bit until someone screamed, whereupon we all went "er...", dithered a bit on confusion, and moved on to the next game.

By the way, the age of the special little birthday boy is 40, so don't worry about games being too complicated or likely to end in tears. But we don't want any of that teenage hanky-panky stuff, or games that involve singling people out to do embarassing things.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

"In and out of the dusky bluebells"? -Neuromancer

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Very tempting, if only to see the look on the faces of all these burly role-players as they're asked to skip around singing about bluebells. :-)

[purplecat]

Consequences goes down well at G's parties

We have something called the "Letter Box Game" that I can bring with us. It involves running around the "house" posting letters in the right box. We probably have enough sets of letters for about a dozen people to play.

Treasure/scavenger hunts always seem popular but take some setting up.

Kim's game.

Build a bridge from straws and pins.

I vaguely recall some game which involved a race to dress one member of your team in random silly costume.

Various versions of charades, including one which involves drawing popular book/tv/you-name-it titles.

Names on backs.

Wink Murder generally works better than Murder in the Dark, I've always found.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, Kim's Game - good for calming things down if all these 40-somethings get over-excited, the way they do. :-)

The Letter Box game sounds promising.

The main problem is that there's quite a lot of vagueness about arrival times, so we could have anything between 20 and 40+ for these games. 40+ is too many for several games on my list - but we could always organise sub-groups, in which some people play a game while everyone else mills and chats.

I was considering names on backs, but rejected it since I've only played it as an ice-breaker at adult parties, rather than one we used to play when young, but it could be a fun thing to do as and when people arrive. If G's played it at parties, then it counts as a proper children's party game. :-)

[purplecat]

I'll bring the letter box game with us. Once you have the bits it doesn't take a lot of setting up so we can use it or not depending upon numbers.

G has certainly played names on backs at parties, though possibly only her own. However we play it because I played it as a child so I'm sure it counts.

G. has put a vote in for charades of the "mime the title" variety and for a game she's just played at Brownies called Fruit Salad...

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

One real biggie up here is "Corners"

It is sort of a variant of muscial statues, except that everyone runs to their choice of corner when the music stops. In each corner is a picture, and then everyone in (for example) the Tardis corner is out. Repeat until only one person is left.

Just don't make the mistake I did and hand out tpy waterpistols as prizes or they will NEVER stop playing with them!

Balloon race. Two teams, people standing one beind the other. The person at the front passes the balloon over his head to no2, who passes it between his legs to no 3, who passes it over his head etc until the person at the end of the line gets it and runs to the front. The team which ends up with no1 at the front again is the winner.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Corners sounds ideal - very easy to organise, and likely to work just as well with 20 as with 40. (Numbers are currently fairly vague.) The balloon race sounds good, too. Hopefully organising adults into equally sized teams should be a whole lot easier than organising 5 year olds in the library. I sometimes end up with a team of 3 facing a team of 11, since no-one in the team of 11 wants to be separated from sisters, friends, cousins etc.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I remember a game called something like 'Mummies' in which you have to wrap someone in your team up in toilet paper until they're completely covered. Can't remember any more details though.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

I've made newspaper dresses before now

[sally_maria]

The chocolate game? You could try smaller groups but I've played it at a church party with 20-30 people at least. Or have two lots of chocolate on the go and make one of them when you throw a one.

Or does that come under "singling people out to do embarrassing things"?

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

My mother and I were talking about Oranges and Lemons the other day I I said I had never really understood the game. She explained that half of the arch was 'oranges' and the other 'lemons' but no one else knew which. The trapped person then has to choose oranges or lemons and whisper so no one but the arch hears, and then tags on the back of whoever it is. When everyone has been picked there is a tug of war, everyone holding on to the person in front with the two arches in the middle...

[segh.livejournal.com]

The most popular game among my Brownies was Mary and the Spaceships (modernised from lambs). Everyone stood in a circle holding hands; within the circle was Mary (blindfolded) and three spaceships, who were required to make spaceship noises while Mary hunted them by sound. At intervals the leader sounded a whistle and all those in the circle took one step in, until Mary was hunting in a tiny space. Or until she caught all the spaceships, of course.