Conference moira::parenting_v3

    Lorrie....I am part of a group that is organizing a block party to be
    held soon.  Just last week I was at the library with my son and found
    some great books on games in the childrens section.  Although I havent
    gone thru it yet in detail and cant give you some specific games, after
    a quick glance I was glad I found them....Good luck...Jennie
    

    See if you can find a Girl Scout leader who will loan you her copy
    of "Games from Around The World."  It includes things like "Spot the
    Tiger" and "Crossing the River" that my daughter and her friends
    (both sexes) used to just love.  
    
    "Spot the Tiger" is a variety of hide-and-seek; the kids hide
    their eyes while an adult taps each one of them on the back,
    between the shoulders.  Only you leave a strip of tape on one
    child's back.  When everybody opens their eyes, they try to figure
    out who the tiger is, and when they do, they go to a corner of the
    play area and try not to giggle too hard.  When the child with the
    tape figures out she's the tiger, she roars.  If she figures it
    out before she's the only person left on the field, she wins. 
    
    "Crossing the River" takes a package of rock-colored construction
    paper, a space at least 12' wide -- a living room, a street, a
    driveway, a lawn -- and a die.  The space is the river; you lay
    down the sheets of construction paper to make the rocks on which
    the players will cross the river.  The adult in charge rolls the
    die and calls out the number, and everybody tries to move ahead by
    that many "rocks."  If you put your foot down anywhere but on the
    paper, you fall in the river and you're out of the game.  It's
    more fun the more people you have, because it develops elements of
    musical chairs if there aren't enough rocks for all the kids.  You
    can also use different colors of paper, and divide the kids into
    teams by color, so that on one turn, the red team moves on red
    rocks, the next turn the green team moves on green rocks, etc. 
    The team who has the most people finish, wins.
    
    --bonnie

This went over real well. Its a relay race where you place an inflated balloon
on the chair so that the child will sit down on it and pop it, then run back
to tag the next kid in line who sits down in the chair to pop a balloon.
 You will have to take the time to inflate a lot of balloons, expect at least
two iterations for one race, maybe four. The kids we used this on were 5-7
years old. I figure the younger ones might get scared by the popping sound. Use
your judgement, try it out before the party.
I think the element of relay race gets the kids up and screaming.

    A game that was played at our clambake last year was actually for the
    adults but the older kids (maybe 6 and up) wanted in on it and ended up
    playing it for a long time.
    
    It's chair basketball. You line up chair in 2 rows facing each other
    and each person sits opposite an opponent and next to an opponent - a
    stagered affect of the team members.  You also have a person who stands 
    at each end of the rows and acts as their teams basket by holding out 
    their arms on a circle. You try to bat the "basketball" (actually a 
    balloon) down to your "basket". One point is scored for each basket and 
    we played until 10. You can do this with any number of people/kids. You 
    can either rotate players or maybe play a round-robin and determine a 
    winning team. Hope this was clearly explained.
    
    This was great fun for the adults because the they soon realized that
    the "basket" could move and made scoring a little easier.
    
    Egg races are always fun - eggs balanced on a spoon.
    
    The orange under your chin and pass it to the next team member is fun
    for kids. 
    
    Have a fun day.

    The great success at the last birthday party was...
    
    a "costumed" obstacle race...  Let me explain : we had 12 kids so it
    was 2 teams of six each..  A pile of old, outsized clothes, and an
    obstacle course which consisted of a large tarpaulin (crawl under), a
    ladder on the ground (walk in the holes), upsidedown flower pots (walk
    on without falling off..), a tennis ball (catch 10 without dropping), a
    jump rope (skip 10 times without missing).  The race starts with
    running to the spot where all the clothes are. Each participant must
    put all the clothes on (not carry them), they then proceeded through
    the obstacles, returned to the "clothes" spot and took all the clothes
    of and raced to tag the next team member.  
    
    Planned number of rounds was 2 goes.... The children actually played
    this with great relish for about 20 minutes non-stop !
    
    At the last DEC picnic, they had clowns and make-up specialists... All
    ages really enjoyed this; the make up jobs were mask-ish,clown-ish or
    "animal" faces (e.g. tigers, dogs, cats even butter flies) and scenes
    (e.g. a beach scene, a surfer on a wave)...
    
    P.S. Just make sure you get some good helpers on your side !
    
    Good luck - and more important - hope you all have fun !
    
    Diana

    A few ideas that may appeal to the younger children ( ages 1-5).
    
    Hide the peanut - just like an Easter Egg Hunt but use peanuts for eggs
     and paper bags could be used to collect them.
    Bobbing for apples - my children love this especially in the summer
     when getting wet is part of the fun.
    Duck, Duck, Goose  - most preschoolers know how to play this. 
    Face painting and relay races - mentioned earlier are great.
    
    Sounds like fun.  Enjoy!			Louise

    Another fun (not necessarily a game) activity is to put a name tag on
    everyone's back with the name of a character or person they should
    know. They ask everyone else questions trying to figure out who they
    are. It's kind of like "What's My Line?" only it's "Who Am I?". Use
    characters like Kermit the Frog, Bugs Bunny, Darth Vader, Fred
    Flintstone, Opie, etc. You could even divide them into age categories 
    so the character really fits the age group. 
    
    You can complicate it with only being able to ask each person one
    question.
    
    Andrea                                   

    These are all great suggestions!  Keep 'em coming - I am really getting
    nervous!
    
    Lorrie
    

    The one we used to use at the fire dept picnics, which always was a
    hit, was to get a mound of either sawdust or sand and bury little
    prizes or coins in it.  The object is to find the buried treasure. 
    This generally works for a wide age span, like 4 to whatever.  We
    usually broke it up into age brackets, like 4-6 7-10 and 10 and over.
    We used little prizes, like jack sets, small toy cars, coins wrapped in
    a wad of foil to make it golf ball size and the kind of things ToysRUS
    sells in their party favor section.  They also used this kind of thing
    at our town's Founder's day this year, it was a real hit!!
    
    Best of all relax and just let the kid's do their thing!!
    
    Lyn
    

    I am glad to say that the picnic is over and the games were a hit!  We
    hung hula hoops from trees and had the kids throw frisbee's through
    them for a prize and had the little kids throw a ball through.  Even
    the two year olds were successfull (standing real close) - but they did
    it for that prize.  We also hung piniatas through basketball hoops -
    two (one for each age group) - blindfolded the big kids and just let
    the littler ones bang away.  Also had sack races (can't find the burlap
    bags here so had the grocery stores save some onion sacks - 50 lb.)
    and they worked just as well.  Also did the old egg in the spoon game.
    Used plastic eggs that you find at Easter time and that was a real
    hit.  And last - - the water balloon game - did the traditional toss,
    they since we had 150 of them, we just let the kids whip them around.
    They had a good time, it was hot and the play didn't get out of hand.
    
    All in all, the thing that I would do differently is put the prizes/
    candy in some kind of carpenter belt, since it was cumbersome to carry
    the bags of this stuff around.  I was certainly amazed that even the
    littler kids caught on to what was happening and also had a good time.