Effective Children's Ministry

Posts Tagged ‘Games Ideas’

Sometimes it is the simplest games that surprise us with the enthusiasm and delight of the kids. Even teens can get a kick out of some of them.

GrowingKidsMinistry.com have several blog posts about games for groups. Why not hop over to their blog? 
There are even videos of two of the games being played (by teens!) and a link to a PDF Activity guide which details many more games. With a little thought, you can select ones suitable for your age group and have a whale of a time!

The first part of Minute to Win it for Church groups

The second part of  Minute to Win it for Church groups

In a previous post we spoke about the dangers and advantages of group games.

Now for some great ideas for group games. You will find them at the Ministry-to-children.com forum. If you are looking for some tried-and-tested games ideas, check it out the big list here.

Or how about this one involving bowls of M&Ms and a scooter!!

Are there any large group games you have found to work with minimum danger (!) and maximum fun? If you have, feel free to comment below.

Life circumstances have recently got in the way of Catherine and I uploading our own material for you to download. But from time to time we can point you in the direction of some other helpful sites.

With summer fun days and other events these days, help with group games is always welcome.
Youthministry.com have some great posts to stimulate your own thoughts and also to get you started with tried and tested group games.

Here’s one about how games can enhance your ministry.

And another about how to avoid common mistakes when playing games with your kids. The writer tells us that these are the ones which can derail our effectiveness.

A great source of tried and tested ideas is the ChildrensMinistry.com online magazine.  You can sign up for their email newsletter and get loads of helpful and relevant information.

This week they flagged up a group  game for 6-12 year olds. Octopus is fun to play, especially as when a child is “out” he is also “in”.

Here’s how it works:

What to do: Create two home bases on either end of a large play area. Choose someone to be the Octopus. Have all the other children start on one home base. Once kids leave home base, they have to get to the other base before getting tagged by the Octopus. When kids are tagged, they join hands with the Octopus. The Octopus works together to catch other kids.

Once an Octopus has six people, it breaks in two. Play until all children have been tagged.

For this and other great ideas, visit ChildrensMinistry.com

Have you discovered a helpful site with resources and ideas for children’s ministry. Why not let us know by adding a comment below?

You can make your Bible review games extra fun with this free downloadable game. Using two dice and some numbered laminated skittle images mounted on a board, you can play a game of 8-pin bowling with two teams.

If a team answered your review question correctly they throw the two dice. The numbers they throw determine which of their skittles or pins come off the board.

This game has been the cause of great excitement and a cliff-hanging finish! Sometime one team romps ahead and “knocks off” all their skittles except one. They are looking for the two dice numbers they need to make up that last number for the skittle. As each turn passes, and they do not find the right combination, the team that was so far behind is catching up. A great lesson on not giving up!

Incidentally, we found this worked well in schools, where teachers appreciated the children having a mental arithmetic work-out!

If you download this free add-on to your own review questions, you will find full instructions and printable skittles in a PDF.

FREE 8-Pin Bowling (Skittles) review Game

I didn’t become a Christian until I was an adult, and never found it easy to  learn the books of the Bible in order.  Children, though, have very retentive memories and we can give them a great tool if we help them learn the books in order.

Scripture Lady has a site packed full of fun ideas and excellent tips for children’s ministry. This week I stumbled across some posts she made about games for helping children become familiar with the names of the books in the Bible.

You can find the first 5 games here

Here is the second post, another bunch of games

Making learning fun is a sure-fire way of making it stick.

With all the snow and ice we have had lately (at least here in Scotland!) we thought it would be nice to upload our new Scuba Diving  review game.
It is a colourful way of boosting the level of the fun, because there are surprise bonuses to be won.
It all depends on whether the children pick an exotic fish, shells, or polluting rubbish!

• Ask a question on the Bible lesson. If a child answers correctly, they receive points for their team (say 50) and then they choose a number card to see how much of a bonus they get.
• Bonuses are collected by the child choosing a number, which is taken off, leaving the underwater item behind on the display board.
• Depending on what the item is, bonuses are added to the team’s score. No bonus is added if rubbish is found.
• Bonuses are suggested on the printout and you might like to cut out and laminate that card as a permanent reminder to you and for all to see as they play the review game. 
• The winner is the team with the most points after all the items have been revealed, or when time is up.

Full instructions, visuals and a suggested list of bonuses are included in the free download.

It is a hefty file (just over 2 mb) so we have zipped the files. You will need to extract them when you have downloaded the zip file.
If you are not sure how to do that, just let us know and we’ll send you an uncompressed file.

Right-click on the link below and then save the file to your computer.

The Scuba Diver review game: a free PDF download

Whether its pointing at someone and laughing at them, picking up litter, writing a thank you letter or drawing graffiti, most good or bad things we do involve our hands.
The review game Helping Hands or Hurting Hands explores these every-day choices kids have to make.
It’s free to download. Just print it, cut it and laminate it.
There are some scenarios suggested, but there is plenty of scope for you to develop it in a way that your kids can identify with.

We first made it to add a bit of zip to a review of the lesson of Moses – murdering an Egyptian then helping the shepherdesses. It would be equally useful to review Zachaeus – taking money, then giving it away.
You may think of other Bible lessons where this review game will emphasis a theme in your teaching.

It is easy to set up and play. The “hand” cards are mounted on a board using Blu-Tac or some other removeable method (eg. magnetic strip). Then you:

• Ask a question on the lesson. If a child answers correctly, they choose a hand card to see if they get a bonus.
• If the scenario on the back of their chosen item demonstrates helping hands, they score the bonus.
• Anyone choosing the hand which has the Helping Hands gold star logo scores a double bonus!

Right-click on the link below and then save it to your computer.

>> Helping Hands review game: free PDF download.

Prepare for each team a hat, scarf, pair of gloves, pair of woolly socks and pair of boots. If they are adult size, this will add to the fun the fun!
Choose a representative for each team.
As each team in turn answers the review questions correctly, the representative at the front puts on item (gloves, socks and boots go on in pairs).
First team to wear everything wins!

This game and other ideas for Christmas review games are on our >> Christmas resources mini-site

Catherine and I have just finished making a wee Powerpoint to help keep score in your review game. A very simple idea – the two teams have to light all five bulbs of the Christmas lights.

>> You can download it here.