Archives by: Allan Hayley

This is a great game for those cold winter nights. You’ll need the following supplies:
Soft Kickball
1 roll of shrinkwrap, you can purchase it
an office supply store.

Set up the kickball field with the bases around 15 to 20 feet apart, trust me the kids won’t be running to fast. Take the shrinkwrap and tightly wrap each players legs together from the waist to just above the knee. Wrap it around quite a few times because the wrap will stretch as the game is played. Once you’re done each player should look like they’re wearing a clear tight skirt. All the rules of kickball apply. Divide the kids into 2 teams and watch the waddling fun.

Divide the group into two teams. Have the kids pair up with an opposing player of equal size, the game won’t be far if this isn’t done. Have each pair spread throughout the room and stand back to back and lock their arms together. These are the pinball bumpers for the game. Have two kids from each team go to each end of the room and lay on their sides with their feet about four feet apart. These are the flippers for the game. A point is scored when the ball passes between the flippers and must be rolling on the floor when it does. The bumpers can move during the game but must always remain back to back with elbows locked together. Once the game gets going additional balls can be added to increase play. After each score the ball is thrown back into play.

Every fellowship hall has an abundance of folding tables and chairs, this game will put them to a different use.

Set up is easy:
Place 4 chairs in the center of the room so the backs form a square. Encircle the 4 chairs with another ring of chairs. Continue to add rings of chairs till you get something that looks like a giant target. Mark each ring with a point total, inner ring is 50 points, next one is 40 points and so on till you get ot the outer ring.
Take two folding tables and lay one on the floor without opening the legs. Place another table next to the end and only open one of the legs to form the lanching ramp.
Balls are rolled down the ramp and lanched into the Skeeball ring. For the balls we used Soccerballs, Basketballs and for a challenge Footballs.
If desired you can make the game into a team challenge and place a ramp on opposite sides of the Skeeball target and have each kid launch a ball together.

This game is played like the board game with a slight variation.
Divide a large room in half so the teams can’t see the other half of the room, sheets or blankets hanging from a rope works well. Give each team a total of 17 chairs, these will become the ships. The kids can place the chairs anywhere on their side of the room as follows:
Chairs must be placed in a straight line so that they are touching each other to form a ship.
5 chairs is a Carrier (1 ship)
4 chairs is a Battleship (1 ship)
3 chairs is a Destroyer (2 ships)
2 chairs is a Cruiser (1 ship)

Have the kids sit in the chairs to become the crew. If you don’t have enough kids to fill all the ships, each ship must have 1 crew member.
Cannonballs (soccer balls, basketballs) are given to each ship. At the “FIRE” command by a leader a cannonball is thrown, one at a time, over the room divider. If a ship is hit on the fly, no bounces, a “HIT” is announced and one of the chairs is layed on its side, but not removed from the ship to keep track of the number of “HITS”. The game continues till one of the teams has its entire fleet sunk.

Another quick thought, you can also play this game outside when its warm and use water balloons instead of balls, or indoors if you’ve got a mop and a nice janitor.

This is an easy game of tag that will keep the kids on their toes. Supplies needed: something large enough for 2 kids to stand on (a bath towel, large sheet of paper, carpet square, etc.). You will need enough of these for each kid playing.

Randomly place them on the floor throughout the room, these are your “Lily Pads”. Have each kid stand on a lily pad, there can only be one person on a each pad during the game. Next pick 2 kids to begin the game one is “it” and one will be chased by “it”. Have them step off their “Lily Pads” and then remove their pads from the game. The object of the game is for the kid who is “it” to tag a kid who is not on a lily pad. The first person to be chased can at anytime during the game jump onto another person’s “lily pad”. Once he/she does that he/she is safe, but the other person who was on the pad must now get off the pad and he/she is now the one being chased. There is no pause in the action when this takes place. Once a person is tagged by “it” they are now the one who has to chase and try to tag another player who is not on a “Lily Pad”.

This game had our kids really hopping, even our adult leaders got in on the fun.

Every church has most everything you need for this game, here’s the list:
2 long Folding Tables
Roll of Masking Tape
6 Paper Coffee Cups
6 Golf Balls

To play the game place the tables end to end so you have one long table. At each end use the masking tape to create a Shuffle Board scoring triangle. You can decide how you want to score each section of the triangle. You can also use the tape to cover the small gap between the tables if needed and make sure the tables are pretty level where they come together so the cups roll smoothly across the table. Each coffee cup is placed over each golf ball. Each of the 2 teams gets 3 cups. Mark the cups so each team knows which is theirs. Two players stand at each end of the table (a player from each team) and gently they push the cups toward the scoring triangle at the other end of the table. Each player on a team alternates pushes to allow the opportunity to knock out the opposing team’s cup. The score is tabulated after all 6 cups have been pushed. The more kids that you have the more tables you will need, 4 players per table seems to work best.

Musical chairs is a great game, the only problem is what to do with all the kids that get out right away. The solution: don’t have anybody get out. We pitted the girls against the guys. You will need only six chairs and a really large dice,(we used a large square box). Place the chairs real far apart facing the center of the room and mark them 1 thru 6. Have all the kids place their hands on one another’s shoulders and begin going around in a circle as the music plays. When the music stops everybody runs for a chair. The first person to a chair sits down and every person following sits on the preceeding person’s lap. Now, the dice comes into play. Someone rolls the dice and what ever number comes up is is the only chair that wins points. The points are given the following way. Each gender is given a point for every person of that gender sitting on the chair. The first person on the chair gives their gender double the points. (3 boys and 3 girls are sitting on a chair. the first person on the chair is a girl. points would be boys 3 and girls 6)
Music starts again and everybody gets up forms the circle and play begins anew. We played first team to reach 50 points.

For this game you’ll need just a few supplies that are easy to come by.
10 full plastic soda bottles 12 or 16 oz. size.(The winners get the Soda)
1 bag of regular round balloons, don’t buy water balloons since they easily pop.
1 roll of plastic tablecloth, most churches have this.
A few throw pillows

The game is set up as follows:
Use the tablecloth to make the bowling lane as long as you like, the longer the better. Tape the ends down to the floor or carpet. Use a marker to show where the soda bottles will be placed, they are the pins.
Fill the balloons so that they can be easily held by the kids, if they’re too big it is hard to bowl with them. Place the filled balloons in a bucket of water so that when the kids bowl with them they will slide on the plastic tablecloth. You can also mist the tablecloth with water.
To make the game a little more challenging place the throw pillows under the tablecloth edge in different spots to form small rises in the lane.
Scoring is done just like regular bowling.
You may choose to use 6 bottles instead of 10, so you have less to set back up after each bowl of the balloon.
Have another bucket at the end of the lane so you can place the bowled balloons in it and then just switch buckets when one becomes empty.
When the game is over the kids can dispose of the balloons as they see fit, keep a towel handy!