Sound barrier
Environment: best played outside or in a large room where lots of noise can be made
Equipment: gym benches or enough chairs for half the players
Handy hints: You may need written messages, but usually the adult or children make up their own message.
How to play:
* Two teams of players
* One team spits in half and stands on benches facing each other.
* The leader tells half of the team on the benches a secret, for example, 'The lion has escaped'.
* On the call of 'Go' the players must try to tell the other half of their team the message, but the other team stand in the middle and make as much noise as possible to prevent the first team from understanding the secret.
* When the message is understood, the teams swap over.
Laughter lines
Environment: better indoors, not much space needed
Equipment: none
Handy hints: Resist laughing, go on!
How to play:
* Two lines of players face each other with approximately one metre space between them.
* Players take it in turns to walk down the middle of the two lines, looking at each player in the eye and trying not to laugh.
* The other players in the line try to make the player walking in the middle laugh without touching them.
* If they do make them laugh, the player in the middle stops and returns to the end of the line, and another player has a go.
Batty balloon
Environment: indoors with space
Equipment: a chair for every player, balloons, newspaper batons, bins or boxes Handy hints: You need even numbers for this crazy game to work best. You also need someone to run around and rescue balloons that go astray.
How to play:
* Players divide into two teams.
* Teams sit on two lines of chairs opposite each other with 1.5 metres between them.
* Place a bin or box at each end of the lines about one metre away from the lines of chairs.
* Each team member has a rolled-up baton of newspaper.
* Teams choose which way they are batting.
* The teams have to bat a balloon into their bin or box to score points/goals.
* The teams must remain seated at all times and only one balloon can be used at a time.
* No one should be able to hit another player with their newspaper baton!
Statues
Environment: indoors or outside - not much space is needed
Equipment: none
Handy hints: a fun game using the players' imaginations and bodies.
How to play:
* Players divide into groups of about five to eight people per group.
* The leader calls out different objects that the group has to mime and create by using the bodies of their group members and nothing else - for example, a bridge, a fried breakfast, an airplane.
* Give players a time limit for each statue and at the end of the time limit call out 'freeze!'.
* The group members then stop whatever they are doing and see who has done what with their time.
Cyber balls
Environment: indoors is best, with space for two teams to run around in their own designated areas
Equipment: Eight to ten very soft balls per team, a bench or line of chairs
Handy hints: This game will need a referee or two.
How to play:
* Players split into two teams, which do not have to have equal numbers.
* Players stand with an equal number of balls either side of the marker/line of chairs/benches that divide the two teams.
* The soft balls are thrown at the other team's legs. If a player is hit by a ball of the opposite team, then they go over to their side
* Players can run around, leap, jump, skip or whatever to get away from a ball thrown at them.
* The teams can play at random - they do not have to take turns. NW
Further activities
* These games have been republished with permission from A Pocketful of Games, published by Common Threads Publications. For more information, telephone 07000 785215 or visit www.common threads.org.uk
