Gail's Girl Scout Resources

Make sure everyone gets a package of beads ( different color for each person). Give everyone a 6 inch piece of gimp with a Heart bead in middle.

Divide group into two rows and have them sit facing each other with feet touching. Then have each person carry on a conversation with the person facing you. Tell about yourself. Where you are from, birthdate, favorite color etc. Then exchange bead with that person thread it onto you have traded all your color beads (or have one left), and move down line to your right to next person and do the same thing until you have exchanged all your beads. Tie and wear your new bracelet

Wendy Baker

Get yourselves into a line alphabetically by first name without speaking. For an extra challenge, if you know each other well: use middle names!

Marianne Mitchell

Ask the group to line up on order of birthdays, starting with January on one end and ending with December at the other. Again, do this without speaking.

Marianne Mitchell

One game that we used to do in Pathfinders was the Label activity. Parents and girls are divided into small groups and given a topic to discuss. However, each person wears a label on their forehead (not knowing what it says) like: ignore me, praise me, treat me like I'm stupid, agree with me.....etc.

After a while, have people guess their labels and talk about labels in life. It works well with parents too!

Laura

This game helps the players learn each other's names and at the same time have some fun. It's a good 'ice-breaker' for the first night at camp.

One player is designated to be IT. He takes his place in the center of the players, sitting in a circle in the dark. IT suddenly flashes his flashlight on one of the players and asks "Who are your next door neighbors?" And then he flashes the light on the nearby neighbors. If the player who was asked the question, can't name both neighbors correctly, he becomes IT. If he does name them correctly, IT asks him "How is So and So?", naming either of the players. If the reply is "OK", the players remain seated, but if the answer is "Not so good", all players must change seats. While everyone is shifting IT tries to get a seat. If he succeeds the one without a spot then becomes IT.

Note: Until everyone is sure of the names, IT must give them time to learn the names of their neighbors before they shift.

Jane Maddin

Come prepared with pennies in your pocket. Sit the girls in a ring. Ask them to keep count of how many names you get wrong. Each Guider gets a turn! Walk around the outside of the ring. Stop at each girl put your hand on her head and say something like: You are dressed in Brown....You have short blond hair.... Your name is????..... (Well, if you don't know use any name.) Ask the girl if you guess right.
If not girls count that as one wrong. Move on to next girl until you visit all the girls. Have the pennies at the end. Ask for how many you got wrong, and deposit same amount of pennies in to a sock hanging up somewhere. Tell the girls that In Feb. you will send all the pennies to the WFF. Don't forget each Guider gets a go.

For some reason there is lots of giggling and this game became our most request. Of course we got better at it each week and by Feb. we get all their names. The WFF was richer by $20.00. Interesting though the girls started by them selves to bring in pennies for our name game sock.

Marian Beswick-Arthur

Equipment: sock pairs (at least one per person-fun if more!)
Ages: have to be able to throw catch

You form a circle and the leader throws one person a pair of socks (rolled up tight in a ball) That person (1) must ask the name of a person (2) she doesn't know then before she tosses the socks to person 2, must shout out person 2's name. Person 2 then has to ask the name of someone she doesn't know, call out that person 3's name, and toss the socks to her....etc. until everyone has caught the socks.

RULE: You must always toss the socks to the same person - but only after you shout out their name.

Now here's the game...
Meanwhile the leader tosses in more and more and more socks. Socks are flying everywhere names are being shouted all at once (sometimes a person may have 4-5 pair and then it's "Susan, Susan, Susan, Susan (pelt, pelt, pelt, pelt) Leaders were running after socks they missed catching...bedlam and laughter abound.

The leader then will start to remove pairs of socks one by one and it 'calms down a bit' and you again get to hear all the names as the last sock tosses around. It's crazy - but like I said - it worked for me!

Margaret A. B. Jones

Equipment: 3 and 4 letter words written on the back of old business cards (So they are easy to shuffle.)
Age: Guides and up
Number: Teams of 4 or 5 girls

Each team picks a word at random from the pile of cards. Then they attend to spell out the word, using their bodies for the letters and the other teams try to guess the word. The first team to guess correctly is the next one to pick a word.

This game teaches cooperation at the very least. You can also have the words related to some theme; camping, first aid, etc. It does not take very long, and the girls usually enjoy it.

Jane Maddin

We did this as an icebreaker at Transition 97 this past winter. You need an odd number of people in each group. We used 7, but 5 would work as well. Three would really be too small.

Give each person in the group an open ended question like... "the best thing that happened to me this week was..." or "I really hate it when...", etc. Be creative and make sets of questions for each group so each group has the same 7 questions, but each person only has one question.

Now have them line up their chairs so there are 3 down one side facing 3 down the other side, and have one person at the top or "head" of the table, the Madhatter.

The Madhatter starts by reading her question out loud to the group. Then one side of the "table" starts, and the 3 people on that side make eye contact with their partner opposite them, and answer the question out loud. You need one timekeeper for the whole room, who times one minute. The room can get pretty noisy. The timekeeper yells switch, and the other "side" of the "table" gets a turn to answer the question. Believe me, they haven't had any time to think about their answer, because they've been too busy listening!! After one more minute, the timekeeper yells, "Teacups" and everyone moves one chair clockwise, which puts a new Madhatter at the head of the table, and she reads her question, etc., until all of the questions have been read and answered.

Lots of fun, very hectic, and VERY noisy.

Claudia Lister

Good game, especially for people who don't know each other (trainings, etc.)

Make up a list of famous pairs (Laurel and Hardy, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Lord and Lady BP, etc.)
Make name tags for each name.
Pin a tag on the back of each person as they arrive (make sure everyone has a partner!)
They first guess who they are, then have to look for their partner.

Barb Wright,

This is a good one to use with adults, for trainings or the first District meeting of the year. If you know the people, you can prepare the cards in advance. Otherwise, have people fill in a card about themselves as they arrive and then hand them out once everyone is there.

Make up a card for each guest/ participant highlighting an interesting or unusual fact about them. hand out a card to each guest upon arrival and have them try to match the fact on the card.

Marianne Mitchell

Everyone gets a chair and sits in a circle. The Guider has a list of items she reads out. If any of them apply to you, you move the appropriate number of seats clockwise.

Examples:

1. Anyone with one brother, move one seat clockwise. If you have two brothers, move two seats.
2. Anyone with black hair, move one seat clockwise.
3. Anyone who is a Spark, or has been a Spark, move two seats clockwise.
4. Anyone who lives in _____ Area move one seat clockwise.
5. Anyone over the age of 21, move one seat counterclockwise.
6. Everyone wearing brown shoes, move one seat.
7. Everyone in Guides, move one seat. etc.

The idea is to move all around the circle, and end up back where you started. It becomes fun because if you move, but your neighbour doesn't, you sit on her lap! Sometimes, you can have three people occupying the same chair!!

Make sure you have lots of categories so that everyone gets lots of chances to move, e.g. all Branches of Guiding, all hair colours (at different times, of course), and so on.

Katherine Town

In Sleeping Beauty, all the girls pretend to be sleeping Beauty (that is, they lie on the floor perfectly still and silent) when they have all stopped squirming, you choose one girl to be the fairy godmother. She goes around to the girls who are being the best "Sleeping Beauties" and wakes them up with a gentle tap. They then move quietly to line up, the next activity, make a circle, etc, etc...

Jocelyne Pasman

Equipment: None
Number of girls: More than 6
Ages: Bet Sparks could play this, certainly up to an including Guides.
Category: Quiet

Everyone lies down except for the Grave Master (I don't know what to call that person if you're calling this Sleeping Beauty - perhaps Prince Charming?). The Grave Master walks around among the 'bodies' and tries to catch them moving. (They can breathe and blink!)

When she catches someone moving they join her as Grave Masters and search for 'moving' bodies. The last one 'dead' wins. (Or the last one to move is the Beauty.)

Jane Maddin

Ice Breaker (good with people who know a bit about each other already)

Each person is told ahead of time to bring ten objects with some meaning to them to whatever event you are doing this at. When they arrive, give them a bag with a number on it and get them to carefully place their objects into it. Then make sure each person gets someone else’s bag. They have ten minutes to write down ideas about what the person who owns the objects is like, and to try to guess who they are. It is best if you don't do the guessing until after everyone has had their say. This would also work as an end of camp game, to see what people have learned about each other.

Margaret Fraser

Fill out a grid of 5 x 5 squares with things that you know at least one of the girls could answer. Like, I have an older brother, I have 2 or more pets, I have brown hair, I have earned my Experienced Camper Badge (that's Canadian so it won't help you, but you see what I mean?) I have my 7 year service bar, or star, or whatever, I am more than 5 foot 3 inches tall. etc. They must go around and get the other girls (and leaders if you'd like) to sign one square. The first one done, can win a prize if you want.

Jane Maddin

Make a big circle. This works well for younger girls too. Have each girl say their name (and you can have them say one thing that they like too, if you'd like). After they have gone around the whole circle, you toss a ball to one of the girls, while saying their name. The girl whose name you call is the one who is supposed to catch the ball. Try to encourage them to call on people that they don't already know, especially if there are lots that aren't acquainted yet.

Jane Maddin

"As people arrive, hand them a pencil and card. Ask them to print their full name in capitals vertically at the left of the card. They move about, trying to find persons whose last names begin with those letters. For variation, use the monthly theme or other word along the left of the card."

[Personally, I think I'd just have them write their first names and then find people whose last names start with those letters. 1) some people have pretty long names when you put the FULL name together...might have trouble fitting 2) just having the first name on the card forces them to TALK to each other to find out the last names. Just my 2 cents]

Joan D.

Have you ever tried the one where you hand out a roll of toilet paper and tell them to take as much as they will need. (This can be quite hysterical watching) After you welcome them to the meeting, You then ask the leaders and guests to tell one item about themselves per sheet. This could take a while. We once had a leader take 34 sheets. Some smart ones took one.

Kathi Sheridan