Oh my goodness, could I tell you some crazy stories from our family reunion that just ended, but I will save that for another time! What you want is the games! Woo hoo!
We have our family reunions every two years, and that is long enough that sometimes tweens and teens feel a bit awkward at first about interacting, but these games break the ice and bring that beautiful sense of comradery and family back into focus. We played lots of games, but we will share with you a few of our favorites!
Spark! This one is super easy, fast and brings in a bit of competition. This can involve 20-60 people & 5 years old up to age 90 can play! First start by splitting your group in half (You can have everyone number 1,2,1,2,1,2 and etc. Then line up group one and line up group 2) Have both groups line up and face each other in parallel lines about 2-3 feet apart. Then have everyone in each line hold hands. Then place a frisbee, a water bottle or some object at the end of the two lines about half way between the lines. The point of the game is the pass the “spark” the fastest and grab the frisbee (or water bottle) first! So the game leader starts this super fast game by holding the hands of the first people in each line. Then each person passes the “spark” by quickly (and gently) squeezing the hand of the next person. Go fast! The first person at the end of the line to pick up the frisbee first wins! We played this game 7-10 times, rotating the first persons to the end of the line. Easy and fun starter!
Partner Tag (also known as Missionary Tag) Ok! Have everyone grab a partner and link arms in akimbo fashion! If your group is 20 or so, you only need one person to be it! We had closer to 50, so we had 2 people that were “it.” This of course is a twist on the game of tag, in which the person who is “it” is trying to tag other people to have them become “it.” The way this is different is people are in pairs, linking arms and spread out along the playing area. You also need 2 people who are starting the running! All of the people who are paired are pretty safe, until one of the runners links arm with one of the pairs and now suddenly there are three people instead of a pair! Well you can’t have 3 people, so the person on the end of the pair is now set free to go make another pair. So 2 runners perpetually changing up the pairs, and 2 people who are it trying the tag the runners to make them it. There you go- Partner Tag! The reason why this game is so fun especially for family reunions is the partners get changed around a lot, and you have a few minutes to chat with lots of different people!
The Blanket Game: This game is so fun, hilarious and simple. I suggest you play it after a couple of games especially after a name game. (My name is Kim and I like Kites, My name is Kayleen and I like kittens and etc.) Once again divide your group in half. You need a large blanket, and two people to hold it up. It is good to have a captain or point person on each side of the blanket. The blanket should be mostly concealing the entire teams on either side! Listen to how simple this is. Hold up the blanket like a curtain, the captains on either side send someone to the front right next to the blanket. The two people holding the blanket watch to make sure people are in place, then they count ONE, TWO, THREE and drop the blanket down. Then the people facing each other try to be the first person to say/shout the other person’s name! People who know and love each other get tongue tied under the pressure and people who are trying to be reminded of cousin’s names learn them quick! Pull the blanket back up and put two more people in place. Keep it going pretty quickly until you’ve gone through the group and maybe recycled a couple of people! We’ve played this lots of places with youth groups, at parties and in team building!
One last bonus game: The Arizona Snowball Fight! Well we live in the Arizona dessert where it rarely snows, so we find other ways to play! A fun and quick ice breaker game is to give everyone a piece of paper on which they write one fact about themselves (like: I’ve lived in Peru for a year, or I have 3 cats or etc.) Then you crumple up your paper and a have a bit of a snowball fight until the papers are good and mixed up. Everyone then finds a snowball, and one at a time people read what is on their paper and try to guess who it could belong to!
Don’t forget the idea of speed friend-shipping with your loved ones. Line everyone up in two parallel lines and let people talk for about 45-60 seconds. You can even have some conversation starters! Great way to let everyone connect.
Well get out there and have some fun!
If you need more ideas of games, here are some card games we love too! And this is one of my favorite articles about connection!
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