Sniper

This is a great game that you can play with heaps of kids but needs a large outdoor area with trees and other such things (we had an old abandoned golf course).

Preparation takes upto an hour and is as follows:
Organise the kids into three equal teams. Provide Party Poppers and water ballons for each team. The teams mix flour, water and food dye to make coloured “goop”, one colour for each team. Now, using a toothpick, lever off the cardboard cover on the end of the party popper, take out the streamers and fill it with some goop. Replace the cardboard cover and place it aside. Do this to enough party poppers so each kid will get about 12. We do this part in teams so that the kids can work together and discuss tactics for the game. Finally, fill the waterballons up with any leftover goop (an old drink bottle with a pop-up lid helps).

Playing the Game:
Go to a large area and send the teams off in different directions to find (and decorate in the team colours) a base That they have to defend. The base can be any object bigger than a meter, e.g. a tree or boulder. Have a leader at each base to count hits and ammo distribution. Each kid gets a party popper and is sent out to try to shoot the enemy bases. Kids also get points for shooting enemy players but not as much as for a base hit. Kids can also take water bombs and throw them for more points. The kids can’t take more than one party popper at a time and are not allowed to fire once they are hit. If a kid is hit they must return to base and record a hit. This part can take as long as 3 hours and is great fun. The team with the most hits at the end, wins.

This may be a fun game but remember that safety should come first. Make sure all the kids bring goggles/sunglasses to protect their eyes and garbage bags are a good idea to keep the kids clean.