Meeting #31: Games night

We had one week left at the school and nothing planned. So we thought we'd have a games night. If the weather was good, we could go outside onto the field to play, or we could stay inside in our meeting room or go to the gym.

Patrol Time: We asked each Patrol to come up with an indoor game and an outdoor game. Then we used some of their suggestions to fill out the night. The weather was good, so we went outside to play!

Rattlesnake: Everyone joins hands and one person stands with her free hand against a wall. The other end leads everyone under the arm of the first person, who then ends up turned with her arms crossed across her body. The end loops around and goes under the next person's arm, who ends up turned with her arms crossed and so on, until you've gone under each person's arm and everyone ends up with arms crossed. Then the two end people join hands to make a circle of people with their arms crossed. As this is going on, everyone is chanting over and over again:

Chant: R-A-T and a T-L-E and an S and an N and an A-K-E
That's how you spell RATTLESNAKE

Buddy Tag: (from Becky's Guiding Resource): Girls are in pairs scattered around the playing area, and you have a chaser and a chasee. When the chasee becomes tired, she can grab the hand of the one of the pairs and the other girl in the pair must start running. We also have the rule that the chaser can switch off when tired too. We also have a 10 second rule--i.e., the new person must run for at least 10 seconds before she can trade off with another pair.

Stormy Sea: Everyone is lined up on two lines facing each other about 15 yards apart. They are all assigned a category (tonight we used colours, so we had Pink, Orange, Blue, and Green). There are two free moving chasers in the middle. They call out a category and those girls have to run from one line to another. If they are tagged, they have to stay where they are in the middle and can't move their feet (we allowed a pivot foot). When more girls are running past, they can try to tag them without moving their feet as well. You can also get everyone running by calling a catch-all phrase (we used Rainbow). It goes until there is no one left running.

Mousetrap: We start with 4 people in the center, holding raised hands to make a circle, which is the mousetrap. Everyone else has to run through the trap. A leader is standing with her back turned and yells out "Spring the trap!" and the mousetrap people drop their arms. Whoever is caught inside becomes part of the mousetrap. This is continued until there is only one mouse left.

The blackflies were getting bad, so we went back inside.

Telephone: Everyone knows Telephone, right? One person thinks up a short phrase or sentence and whispers it to the person next to them. It goes around the circle and then the last person says what she heard out loud. This ends up with lots of giggles as the sentence changes repeatedly on its way around!

Poor Kitty: I played this as a Brownie and Guide many years ago. One person is It and is the poor kitty. She goes up to someone else sitting in the circle and meows and purrs. The girl in the circle has to pet her on the head and say three times "Poor Kitty!" without laughing or smiling. If she laughs, then she becomes the Poor Kitty. Lots of giggles for this game too!

It was a fun night!