Party Games For Kids Sridevi - Feb 11, 2015

Playing games is one of the best ways to give kids some fun and let their imaginations run wild at the same time. There are plenty of themed games available for hours of fun. Have you forgotten all those games that we used to play when we are young? It's time to bring back some old-fashioned games.

1. Treasure hunt:

Create your clues. Adapt them to your game players. Make picture clues for pre-readers. Clip images from magazines and catalogs or find them online if your drawing skills are as weak as mine are. Challenge older kids with riddles, puns, or even math problems.

Try increasing the activity level in your treasure hunt. With each clue, including direction on how to travel to the next hiding place: hopping, crawling, waving both hands in the air, and so on.

Hide your clues. Again, adjust the difficulty to match kids' abilities. Aim for the challenge, without too much frustration. Consider hiding clues under rocks, inside paper cover, small box, etc. Or see if you can find ways to leave messages without paper. Use magnetic letters on the fridge, or write on a chalkboard, say.

Set ground rules: No running in the house, no pushing other players aside.

2. Lemon and spoon:

The spoon and lemon race is played by walking while balancing a lemon on a spoon which is held by the mouth. It is easy to play a game that is coupled with a lot of fun. One has to balance the lemon without dropping it to the finish line just like a race.

3. Newspaper dance:

The players will be paired up. Each pair gets one newspaper. There will be music playing and each pair has to dance on the newspaper. When the music stops the pair will stop dancing and fold the newspaper once. This routine is repeated until the pair can't dance together - then one of the players from the pair will need to be carried by the other player. If one of the players from one pair falls off the newspaper, they will stop playing while the rest keep on playing. The last pair to still be on the newspaper dancing is the winning pair!

4. Ballon Stomping:

Divide the kids into 2 teams. Tie a piece of ribbon around each balloon. Then tie the ribbon to each foot of each player. Every player should have two balloons of his team’s color.

When the music plays, the kids walk around. When the music stops, the players try to burst the balloons of the opposing team while trying to protect their own balloons.

Any player who loses both balloons is out. The team that has the most balloons intact wins.

5. Tug Of War:

Make a large knot at each end of the rope. Measure the distance between the two knots, and determine the halfway point. Choose teams. Each side should have the same number of people, and a fun way to keep things fair is to pull colored slips of paper out of a hat. For example, everyone who draws green is on one side, and everyone with a blue slip is on the other. Have the teams line up on either side of the rope, and instruct the children to pick up the rope. Each child should be holding some part of the rope. Start the tug of war game! The first team that is able to pull a member of the other team over the line, or causes the other team to let go of the rope, wins.

6. Potato and Spoon Race:

A hilarious and famous party game! In this relay game, all the players divide into teams and every team gets a spoon with a potato on it. Now the children need to complete the distance till turning point and back without dropping the potato and then give the spoon to the next player in the team. If the potato drops, that player of the team has to start again at the starting line. The first team to have all its players complete the course is the winner. A balance relay game for 4 years and up.

7. Hold the Ball:

This relay game is played in pairs. Every pair stands face to face with each other and tries to pinch a ball between their foreheads without using their hands. Now every pair has to complete a distance without dropping the ball and it's not allowed to use hands to hold it in place. A fun balancing race game.

8. Balancing the Book:

Provide each player a book to balance on their head. Allow them to practice walking first before the race begins. Divide the players into two teams and line them up. They have to walk as quickly as possible up to the finishing line with the book balanced on their head. They are not allowed to touch the book with their hands. If the books fall from their head, the player goes back and start again

9. Stones Game:

This is a very old game in, widely played in South India, is a game played between two teams in an unlimited area involving a ball and a pile of flat stones. A member of one team throws a softball at a pile of stones to knock them over. Then the seekers try to restore the pile of stones while the opposing team throws the ball at them. If the ball touches a seeker, he is out and his team continues without him. But a team member can always safeguard himself by touching the opposite team member before the ball hits him.