Summer Camp Games

obstacle course if you have the time and resources to make one. massive game of hide and seek? 

beirut

the games supposed to last for about an hour i think. Its not small games like freeze tag and stuff. Its a big forest. Dont want to do an obstacle course or stuff like that cause we have already done that.

teach them flippy cup or something. they will enjoy it most likely.

scavenger hunt?

Get 4 groups, give each group a flag, make an area about 150 square yards. Tell the kids the last team with a flag wins. No kicking and no scratching.

Get 2 groups on a field around the size of a football field, put a 3 inch piece of duct tape on each persons stomach over their belly button. Whoever has tape on last wins. It's called naval warfare. No rules.
 
Get about 2 groups. Get 2 balls. You have to get this ball to the other side without being taken to the ground. You can be grabbed, punched, kicked, stabbed, whatever. If your back doesn't hit the ground you aren't out. The ball can only be passed backwards and besides that there are no rules.

Get a ton of pine cones and play dodge ball with pine cones.

That's all I got for right now.

Manhunt is alot of fun, i don't really feel like explaining it though.

Doesn't that have to be at night?


My suggestion is to start a fight club. 5 rounds of no holds-barred fighting championships. Divide kids into weight classes though.

i work in rec staff and run games all the time with kids,

we tend to play dodgeball alot, kids get into and never gets old, i always get pegged in the nuts cause there so small their throws are at nut level

but today we played with one of those giant parachutes, and put balls in the middle, everyone takes hold of the side and have to shake the pairachute to get the balls to the other side but keep them from falling off on your side, its fun and takes up a good chunk of time if you need,

another past time favortie i use to play in my neighborhood is kick the can,

everyone has to hide, and depending on how many kids you have you one or two seekers, you put a can in an open spot, the seekers go around trying to find people but when they do they dont have to tag them but call out there name of who they are, and if they call the right name then they both have to run and kick the can before the other, if the seeker kicks it first then the person found is in jail, if the person found kicks it first he is safe and can hide again, to get out of jail someone has to come out of hiding and kick the can without alerting the seeker,

alittle confusing but fun as hell

+K to all helpful answers, i have got some better ideas now. Manhunt is fun but already been played along with kick the can and scavenger hunts. Can't really play dodgeball in the area were in, and dont have a parachute.

Thanks! More ideas are welcome!!

Sorry for double post but,

For this one, do you just give the flag to one team member, and all the teams sorta play tag?

I should've been more specific. You have to take the flag from the person with it, then the team loses.

stones

kind of like capture the flag i guess. two sides to the field, there is a small base at the back of each for giving out / taking stones. the kids get stones at the base, and need to run them to the base at the other side. once they cross the half way point its tag basically, but if they get caught, catcher has three guesses to find the stone. if they do, it goes back to the first base, if they don't, the runner keeps going. team with the most stones at the end wins. if that makes any sense

game of life, or something

i stole this from a site, and you can tweak it any way you like, but its mad fun if you have the time and preparation available. my camp did massive whole camp activities at night where we played stuff like this, not sure if you guys can do it but its sooo much fun if you can.


The game should last about 15-30 minutes. Each player is assigned a role in the
ecosystem. There are three animal categories: herbivore, omnivore, and carnivore. Each
category is given a certain number of lives: 9 lives for an herbivore, 6 lives for an
omnivore, and 3 lives for a carnivore. Tags are the same color as the player’s role and
are worn on a piece of yarn. To make the ecosystem more complete, a human, disease
and natural disaster are included. To distinguish between each member of the food chain,
players will be given a specific colored headband or waistband. The herbivores will wear
green, the omnivores white, the carnivores red, disease and natural disaster are blue, and
the human is black. For a class of 30 Players, there would be:
1 Human 1 Disease
1 Natural Disaster 2 Carnivores
4 Omnivores 21 Herbivores

Hidden in the field or gym are three types of stations: vegetation (food), shelter, and
water. All the animals need to find the shelter and water stations to survive. But the
herbivores and the omnivores also need to find vegetation. These stations consist of an
ink pad and 3-4 stamps which the animals use to stamp their survival card.


To begin the game every animal player is given a headband, “lives” tags, and a survival
card. The players that represent disease and natural disaster only get a bean bag. The
player that represents the human gets “lives” tags that they can use to replenish another
player’s life. The herbivores are let to roam first, then the omnivores, followed by the
carnivores, and finally disease, natural disaster, and the human.

Herbivores must always be looking for vegetation, water, and shelter and stamp their
survival cards to show that they received them. Omnivores can get “life” tags only from
herbivores while they still need to search for vegetation, water, and shelter for their cards.
Carnivores can get “life” tags from either herbivores or omnivores but must also have
stamps on their survival card for water and shelter. Disease can victimize any of the
animals by throwing the bean bag at them. If it hits them, this takes 1 life tag. Natural
disaster can also victimize any of the animals by throwing the bean bag at them. If it hits
them, this takes 2 life tags. The human just has to tag any player in the game (including
disease and natural disaster) and can do anything they want. For example, the human
could terminate the player’s existence (taking all of their lives or eradicating disease) or
replenish them with new lives (they must have at least 1 life tag left in order to receive
additional lives). When a player has been “tagged” by its predator, he/she must surrender
a “life” tag. The predator must than wait 30 seconds before they may catch the same or
another victim. A player can be tagged anywhere on the field, even when they are getting
a stamp for their survival card. Once a player has lost all of their lives, they must sit down and wait for the game to end. The animal categories with players remaining must
show that they still have lives left and have gotten stamps at each of the 3 survival
stations.

complex i know, but so awesome. also, make councilors the human, disease and natural disaster, as well at all the stations. i'd dibs disease or natural disaster.

you can also do games like pokemon where councilors dress up like different pokemon and teams of kids need to catch em all or something, just make up funs shit.

i miss camp

Play marbles.


Each kids get 20 marbles.
They throw them at the other each.
Least badly injured wins

best game ever

capture the flag.. in the woods=so bomb

Gator ball.

Take a ball, normally volleyball sized or a size 3 or 4 soccer ball, just a ball that is able to be held with 1 hand and whatnot. The game is basically football, team handball, and soccer combined. You start with the ball on the ground and kick it to each other, but if one team kicks it in the air another player and that player catches it, the game is now played in the air. the ball is then thrown to each other, caught and passed around. When a player is holding the ball they can run with it. We usually play with flags and when your flag gets pulled and you have the ball, its a turnover. So you wanna pass the ball before your flag is pulled. To score you have to throw or kick the ball in the goal. A throw is worth 1 point and kicking it in the goal is worth 2 points. Awesome game, used to play it when I was a camper and then we played it with the campers when I was a counselor for the past six years lol.

So the rules broken down are -

Start the game with the ball on the ground and is played with your feet, like soccer.

If the ball is kicked in the air to another player the game is now played in the air. No player can kick the ball to themselves unless they hit it off the wall or tree if they play in the woods.

If the ball is dropped/knocked down or hits the ground during a pass on a throw it is a turnover and then the game is played on the ground with your feet.

If a player is de-flagged while they are running with the ball in their hands, it is a turn over and the other team gets the ball on the ground.

After there is a turnover the other team cannot stand directly ontop of the ball they have to be at least like 3-5 yards off the ball so they can take the kick.. similar to a free kick in soccer.

Scoring is worth 1 point if thrown into the goal, and two if it is kicked.

There is a goalie who can use his hands at all times and when he catches it he can run out of the goal with it, or drop it to his feet if he wants.

You can make teams of however many you want, we used to play
5 or 6 on a team including the goalie.

Make up any other rules you want but those are the basics... game is super fun and every kid loves it. Hope you get a chance to play it

1. field trip to unknown place / location.
2. begin playing of the children
3. leave children unsupervised, get on flight to amsterdam
4. ???????
5. profit

1. go to home depot.

2. buy 50-100ft of thin plastic tarp.

3. get soap and water.

4. set up slip and slide.

5. profit?

hahaaahahahaha oh boy

this thread has many lolz

Hey I work at summer camps too. There is always freeze tag, tv tag, duck duck goose, etc. If you want to be creative or are trying to impress people or something you could take a punch of plastic cups (disposable ones should work, we use actual plastic cups but disposable ones would be cost effective, just try it out with one). Then you take balloons, and you cut the bottoms off of them, like the part where you blow in. Take the mangled balloon and stretch it over the top of the cup tight, then secure it by wrapping duct tape around. Cut a fairly large hole in the bottom of the cups maybe an inch or two in diameter. When you grab the middle of the balloon and pull it back it gets tight obviously, and then when you let it go it snaps back and shoots air out of the hole in the bottom of the cup, that you can actually feel pretty well/far away.