Games - Circle Games - Hand Slapping

Hand Slapping

If you thought the sofa game had a complicated explanation wait for this one...
All the players sit in a circle with their hands flat on a table in front of them (you could do this on the floor as well but it works better on a table). Now here come the complicated bit - each player puts their left hand to the left of the right hand on the player on their left and their right hand to the right on the left hand of the player on their right. So every ones hands are flat on the table but mixed up.
One person is chosen to start and they slap one of their hands on the table. The the person that owns the hand that is next to the first hand in a clockwise direction around the table should then slap their hand on the table and the the person with the next hand and so on until... Someone arbitrarily decides to slap their hand twice. The direction of play then reverses and the hands need to be slapped on the table in a clockwise direction.
The point of the game is to only slap the correct hand on the table when it is the correct time for that hand to be slapped. This is quite difficult as your hands are interlinked with those of the people next to you. Also the change of direction caused by a double slap tricks people. If you make a mistake with you hand - either by slapping it when you shouldn't or by not slapping it when you should then that hand is out.
Hope that makes sense!

Games - Circle Games - Opposite Catch

Opposite Catch

In this game everyone stands in a circle facing in apart from one person who stands in the middle. They call out "catch" or "drop" to a person in the circle and throws the person. The person who has been called to has do do the opposite to what has been called. So if the person in the centre called "drop" the person on the edge has to catch the ball and vice versa. If the person on the edge does the opposite correctly the ball is returned to the person in the centre and they call out to a new person. If the person on the edge does not do the opposite and obeys the command of the person in the middle they swap places and become the person in the centre.

Games - Circle Games - Sofa Game

The Sofa Game

This is a game that can be played by older children in a large living room. You need two teams - boys verses girls works well if the numbers are evenly matched. You need a large sofa or four specially designated seats next to each other. Every one sits around the room in a rough circle each in their own place - you also leave an empty place where someone could sit. The players can sit randomly except for on the four designated sits where two people from each team sit alternately. (i.e. boy, girl, boy, girl). Each player writes their name on a piece of paper, folds it up and the names are all mixed up and distributed randomly - one to each player.The game can now start - the player with the space to their right calls out a name of one of the people in the room. The person with that name on the piece of paper they have been given moves to sit in the space and swaps pieces of paper, and hence the names they move in response to, with the person that called them. This leaves another space which the called person has just vacated. The person to the right of this new space then calls a name of someone in the room who moves to the space and swaps pieces of paper. This continues until the game is one. The objective of the game is to fill all four places on the sofa of designated seats completely with members of your team.The fun comes from remembering who has what name as the continual swapping makes it quite hard to keep track along with the strategy of calling people to let the space be called by members of your team.

Games - Circle Games - Duck, Duck, Goose

Duck, Duck, Goose

This is a favourite of younger children - you all sit in a circle facing in. One child is picked and they walk around the outside of the circle touching the head of each player in turn. Each time they do this they say "duck", they repeat this until they suddenly choose to say "goose". When this happens the child who was sitting that has been touched whilst the circling player has said "goose" gets up and runs around the circle in the same direction the first player was going.
The player that touched them has to catch them up before the player that got up can get back to the space the vacated. If they are caught the caught player becomes the new person going around saying "duck", "duck" and touching the heads of the players - choosing one and saying "goose". The original player who was picked sits in the space vacated by the player they caught.

Games - Circle Games - Catch

Catch

All the players stand in a circle facing inwards. One person has a ball and throws it to someone opposite them across the circle. If the person that the ball was thrown to drops the ball they have to kneel on one knee. they then throw the ball to someone else opposite them. Each time someone drops the ball they forfeit another limb. The second time kneeling down on two knees and the third time putting one arm behind their back. If they then drop the ball they effectively become 'out'. If in the mean time they catch the ball the regain the use of the last forfeited limb, if they are successful at catching the ball enough times they return to a standing position. You can also play a variation where people have to call the name out of the person they are throwing the ball to. This helps with learning names - especially if all of you have some sort of name badge as a prompt.