Red Handed

OBJECT - Find the object.

GAME TYPE - Observation game.

WHO'S IT FOR - Group Three. You should have enough people to make it hard for IT.

WHAT YOU NEED - Some sort of small object, such as a beanbag or a marble.

HOW TO PLAY:

1. Have everyone stand in a circle.
2. Choose one person to be IT.
3. IT must close his eyes and count to ten slowly.
4. While IT is counting to ten, the people in the circle start passing around the chosen object behind their backs.
5. When IT reaches ten, he can look and try to figure out where the object is.
6. The members of the circle must keep[ passing the object, but to make it confusing, they are allowed to fake it (pretend to pass when they don't have it).
7. IT may make three guesses. If they get it correct in those three guesses, they win. If they can't figure out where the object is, the group wins.

This is not a competitive game in that no points are awarded, but the group does need to work together in order to keep IT from finding the object.

THIS WORKS ON - Strategy (distracting IT from the proper location), observational skills (looking to figure out where the object is), teamwork (working together to defeat IT)

Eyes and Feet

OBJECT - Guess who's behind the sheet.

GAME TYPE - Observation game.

WHO'S IT FOR - Group One. Three or more people can play this game, but it's more fun and much harder if there's more.

WHAT YOU NEED - A sheet with a hole for the eyes cut out. The hole shouldn't be too high on the sheet, but high enough so the shortest player can look through them.

HOW TO PLAY:

1. Hang your prepared sheet up in a doorway. Make sure you can't see around it.
2. Choose one player to be IT. All other players go to the other side of the sheet.
3. One at a time, a player comes up to the sheet and puts their eyes to the eye hole.
4. IT must decide who the eyes in the eyehole belong to.
5. Have every player look through the eyehole, and have IT decide who belongs to each pair.
6. Once IT has seen all the eyes, choose another IT. They go through the same process.
7. The winner is the player who identified the most eyes correctly.

As a variation, and the reason this game is called Eyes and Feet, you can raise the sheet high enough so only the player's feet are visible, and have IT identify them that way.

THIS WORKS ON - Observational skills (noticing attributes that belong to others), matching (matching eyes or feet to other players)

Catch the Leader

OBJECT - For IT, discover the leader from the group. For everyone else, keep that from happening.

GAME TYPE - Observation game

WHO'S IT FOR - Group Three. You should have at least six people to play this game, but the more the merrier.

WHAT YOU NEED - One chair per person (except for IT), or everyone can just sit on the floor.

HOW TO PLAY:

1. All players sit in a circle.
2. One person is chosen as IT and leaves the room.
3. Once IT is gone, another player is chosen to be the leader.
4. The leader begins a simple, repetitive movement that can be easily imitated by all other players. This could be clapping hands, nodding head, tapping feet, etc.
5. Once the movement has started, IT returns to the room.
6. IT must try to figure out who the leader is.
7. The leader must change the movement every once in a while. If you want, you can set a thirty second time limit before the leader MUST change the movement. Otherwise, the leader will never change, and IT has no chance.
8. All other players must imitate whatever the leader is doing, which means they have to pay attention to the leader. However, they can't give the leader away, so they shouldn't look directly at the leader.
9. IT has three guesses to catch the leader. If IT is successful, the leader becomes the new IT. If IT is unsuccessful, you can make him/her go again, or you can choose a new IT.

It is very important that the group protect the leader. They must pay close attention so the movement changes can be imitated immediately.

THIS GAME WORKS ON - Teamwork (group working together to fool IT), competition (everyone against IT), attending (paying attention to when the movements change), imitation (imitating what the movement is), logic (IT must work out who the leader is).