Big Group Fun Archives - Page 4 of 7

Family Road Relay Race

A little family competition is always good fun. Here’s a plan for a simple road relay where teams are timed as they race to complete tasks.

Family Road Relay

Divide your group into teams of 5-6 people. Teams will begin at a starting line, one team at a time, racing to complete tasks in front of each house on a street. They start at House #1 with the first challenge. One member of the team jump ropes from the first house to the second house. Then another teammate takes over to complete the next challenge. There is a challenge at each house. You can use chalk to mark start and finish lines on the sidewalk for certain challenges. Set up chairs and equipment as needed. Some challenges are one-person tasks, while others use multiple people or the whole team. Participants just take turns, ensuring that everyone is involved.

Our course went down the street, then crossed to the other side and came back. This made it so we could have one person standing at the same line (both the start and finish line) with a stopwatch. Our race took about 20 minutes for one team to complete.

Challenges

Jump Rope
Hula Hoop 10 consecutive rotations
2-man carry
Eat a bowl of cereal
Shoot right & left lay ups and a free throw (make 3 baskets)
Walk with a cotton ball on a spoon (If you drop it, you must return to start.)
Knock down a kubb (8”block) with a wooden dowel from 20’
Tricycle ride
Walk with a tennis ball between knees
Long division problem on whiteboard
Sled Ride- Carry one teammate on a sled (Don’t drag them!)
Scooter ride
Human wheelbarrow race
10 push-ups
Steamroller the whole team
Potato sack race to the finish line

Find more family reunion ideas HERE.

Graham Cracker Gingerbread Houses

Isn’t Christmas so fun?! One of our favorite holiday activities is making little gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.

Last Christmas, I helped A LOT of kids make candy-covered cottages. We made twenty in my son’s kindergarten class, thirty in my other son’s third grade class, and five at home. –So I am feeling like a real pro. Here’s what to do:

Gingerbread Houses

Collect empty milk cartons at school lunch. Rinse the cartons and leave right-side-up and open so they can dry. Once dry, close the cartons and staple the top so they will stay closed.

Milk Carton

Collect lots of sugary decorations and lay them out on plates. Some ideas for decorations include cereal, cookies, licorice, sprinkles, pretzels, gumdrops, candy canes, kisses, gingerbread men cookies, M&Ms, Smarties, jellybeans, coconut, chocolate chips, and gummy bears. At school, we sent a note home with the students to ask parents to donate candy and decorating supplies.

Decorations

Prepare Royal Icing. You’ll need to double/triple+ recipe if you are making many houses. I have found one recipe will make about five houses. I used 4 lbs of powdered sugar for 20 students and 6 lbs for 30 students when we made the houses at school.

Recipe for Royal Icing

1 lb. powdered sugar

1 tsp. lemon juice or vanilla

2 egg whites

Put the egg whites in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until frothy. Stir in lemon juice. Add sugar. Beat with mixer until thoroughly mixed. The icing should be very thick but thin enough to push through a small decorating tip.

Scoop the icing into quart size Ziploc bags– two large scoops per bag. When you are ready to work on the houses, snip a corner off the bag, then push the icing toward that corner to pipe out.

Before the kids begin, give each child two small paper plates, 6 graham cracker squares, and a milk carton. One paper plate will be used as the base for the house. The other will be used to carry candy and other sugary decorations from one location to another. –At home we didn’t need two plates because the candy was on the same table as the children. At school, we had a table with all the treats and the students worked at their individual desks/tables.

Royal Icing

Explain to the kids that you and the other adults will be the “gluers”. Divide your group into manageable sections– 4-8 kids per adult. The kids should raise their hands whenever they need more icing. The adults roam around the room, piping out icing as needed, and complimenting the little engineers with great enthusiasm.

Gingerbread House

Happy building and Merry Christmas!

Neighborhood Mini Triathlon

We have organized two mini-triathlons for the kids in our neighborhood. It was part of a celebration of the end of summer. The kids in the neighborhood were invited to bike one mile, swim two lengths of the pool, then run half a mile. We had kids from age 5 – 14 participate. You should have seen all those proud faces when they crossed the finish line!

Make sure to recruit at least 8 adults to help. You’ll need to place them along the route to keep everyone safe. Map out your course and give your volunteers specific assignments, making sure there is an adult at any road crossings or wear a kids could stray from the route. You’ll also need timers with stopwatches and clipboards recording start and finish times. And, you will need a volunteer lifeguard at the pool.

We like this order, bike – swim – run, but you could also put your swim at the end. Kids don’t want to get out of the pool once they’re in, so we like sandwiching it in the middle so the pool stays clear for the next athlete.

The Starting Line

We wrote numbers on the kids’ shoulders with eye liner pen. The pens are waxy so they don’t rub off in the water.

We sent the kids one at a time, every thirty seconds. They raced against the clock, not each other. Otherwise, there would be way too many kids in the pool at once and the bike route would be too crowded as well.

Biking

Swimming

Running

The Finish Line

I really love this event. I think it’s a great opportunity for kids to feel the glory of hard work and determination. We all feel better about ourselves when we finish something difficult. Everyone feels like a winner if they complete the course– and they all did!