Bad Rap, a game

A New Game!

Fresh from the latest PLAY session. If you’re someone who works with groups, plays games, and ‘gets it’, then ask about joining us for our next session: **Herding the Crowd**: Games that will grab attention and get everyone on board.
Bring your best attention grabbers, group gatherers and games that get everyone to buy-in fast.

Bad Rap

Everyone starts off by chanting together:
Bad rap (beat), bad rap (beat), bad rap, bad rap, bad rap (beat).
One person now creates a line of “rap” and the person next to her must finish that line, but make sure its doesn’t rhyme. For example:
Person 1: I have a pet, he sleeps like a log,
But I have to say I love my –
Person 2: Hippo!
Everyone: “Bad rap | Bad rap | Bad rap, bad rap, bad rap”
Continue this for as long as you like!

Other Rhyming Games:

Four on a Couch – Game for a Group

Four on a Couch

This one is perfect for groups of 10 or more (I’d say up to 40). We play it every year at our camp Christmas party and its always a huge hit!

To play this game, you must have even numbers. Ask everyone to get a chair and sit in a circle, except for 4 people, who will sit on a couch instead of on chairs. There can only be one couch in the circle!

Go around the circle with some masking tape and place a piece of masking tape on the front of every other person’s shirt. The masking taped people are all on the same team. The non-taped people are all on the same team. The game must start with everyone sitting between two people who are not on their team. This also means that of the 4 people on the couch, 2 are masking taped and 2 are not.

Ask everyone to write their name on a slip of paper. Have each person fold their slip in half and throw it in a hat/box/container. Now go around the circle and have each person draw a name. If someone draws her own name, she must put it back and draw again.

The person to the immediate left of the couch starts the game. This person calls the name of anyone in the circle, except the name she just drew. This means she could even call out her own name. Let’s say I call out the name, “Jessi Linn.” The person who is holding the slip of paper with Jessi Linn’s name on it (not Jessi Linn herself) stands up and switches places with me. We also switch slips of paper (this is important to remember!) Once this interaction is over, the person who I just switched with now gets to call a name.

The point of the game is to try and get only people from your team sitting on the couch. But, of course, the trick is to try and figure out which names the people on the couch are holding so that you can boot them off. It’s also tricky to keep track of who has what name when slips of paper are constantly changing hands. Once the game is over, reset and play again by asking everyone to sit between two people who aren’t on their team.

This is a great memory and logic game and is great when you need a large group game that is fairly low-key. Heck, you could play this with a hot chocolate in one hand and a candy cane in the other!

PLAY Lab: 2011 Dates

 

Happy 2011, PLAY Lab Members!!

We are so excited to be celebrating our First Year anniversary of PLAY this month – one full year of fun already!!!

Mark your calendars for upcoming PLAY Lab sessions, the last Wednesday of each month, always 7pm to 9:30pm at Theatre Direct in the Artscape Wychwood Barns:

January 26th,
February 23rd,
March 30th,
April 27th,
May 25th,
June 29th!

Remember that our next PLAY session will be on January 26, 2011.
January’s theme is: Stuff with Music
Bring: a song on CD or iPod and an activity to share.

Also, to celebrate our birthday, January is Bring-a-Friend for Fee month.
Know someone who “totally gets it” and needs PLAY in their life? Bring ‘em!

Click to RSVP for January!

Summer News

So much has happened this summer and I’ve been outside, not in at the computer blogging or tweeting about it. Oh, so sorry.

But the summer has been great so far:

Camp Trainings – I was fortunate to make it out to three camps for training sessions this summer. Kettleby Valley is always fun – great, and really thoughful staff. My favourite part of that workshop is getting them to feed and endow Good and Poor leadership on the leader; they make me feel so sad then so awesome. The power of supporting our peers… At Theatre Direct we kicked off their summer camp season with a PLAY session, loads of games and mindshifting, and we even invented a new game!…I went out to Pleasant Bay Camp for the first time this year – what en enthusiastic and experienced staff. We did a PLAY session, totally rocketing through games since they knew so many already, but I stumped them on a few Never-Can-Tells.

Then I took to leading campers on my own at LKTYP’s Summer Session of the Drama School.  Over the two weeks, we had fun (despite the heat!) and created a hilarious show showcasing the Dreams that some of the students dreamed up. Very silly and a great showcase for group movement, mini-monologues, loads of cooperative play, and some props we made in the prop shop. Great session!!

Then I was off to spend time lakeside for a couple of weeks with Luke’s family up near Kingston and then Tremblant. Lovely family times!

And now back to work!!

Penny Games


Flipper Flopper

Need: one penny for each pair

The Game:

Divide into partners. One partner is the Flipper, one is the Racer.
Racers line up at the starting line, Flippers at the finish line.
Flippers, as fast as they can, must flip their coin and report what comes up.
Heads – racer takes two steps forward
Tails – racer takes one step back
Racers must step heel-to-toe.
First racer to high-five his/her partner wins.

Variations:

- allow intervals of ‘big steps’ where racers are released from the heel-toe rule

Pinch my Penny

Need: a penny for each player

The Game:

stand facing your partner. Put your left hand behind your back and hold your right hand out, flat, in front of you with the penny in the palm of your hand.
Stand so that your hand is right beside your partners, facing your partner.
Rules: must start from open palms, must keep your left hand behind your back.
Try to steal your partner’s penny.

PLAY Group was Amazing

I had such high hopes for the much-discussed, highly secretive PLAY group that launched today. It had the potential to be really fun, uplifting, and rejuvenating.

It was all that and more. I had so much fun that I forgot to take any pictures of the event to put up on the site!

Karen, Rob, Rebecca, Chantal, Rich, Will, Amy and Amber – Thank you for really being people who “get it”. You really brought it and I couldn’t be more proud of the success of today’s PLAY session.

We played SO many fun games, I learned some things I can’t wait to put into action…I’m sending out a detailed list to all the PLAY participants and some highlights might make it onto the blog soon.

I realized how exhilarating it is to just, well, play together. There was a liberation at being able to work at the pace of those who have the basics of how to get into these sorts of activities, to move at the pace of a skilled and eager group. And we learned a LOT from each other! There was a real freedom and a great sense of encouragement in the air. The laughter was spontaneous, joyful, and genuine. So many of the participants are already telling me that something special happened in that room today; I’m so proud of the group that ventured out to the Distillery to try out this wild idea I had and I’m beyond excited about where this program can go.

If you’re someone who’s interested in trying out PLAY, check out the PLAY page or email me to get on the invite list.

Not even the parking ticket I got can bring me down – I’m so pleased!!

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