New Game Ideas

Spending the past week coming up with new game ideas in class got me thinking about how many other games I've created throughout the course of my life.

Last year when teaching second grade Sunday school at church, I came up with an idea for a game that would get the kids more involved in the weekly lecture. It was an interactive activity based on the game Life and so creatively dubbed Religious Life. The students would have to tranverse a lengthly path covered with colored square blocks. Each of the colors stood for a different question they would have to answer in order to move further. Along the way, the kids would have to overcome several obstacles (the Seven Sacraments) that they had to pass in order to reach the finish line (Heaven). The kids seemed to really enjoy playing the game, but it got somewhat chaotic when seven extremely active nine year olds sat impatiently around a table waiting to roll the dice on their turns. I was really proud of myself for coming up with such a fun activity to break up the monotony of book reading and workbook pages.

I remember in sixth grade we had to develop a game in partners based on positive and negative choices people could make throughout their lives. Another board game was created... I remember naming it Chances Are, a suitable title for game of choices. My partner and I were extremely naive (we were sixth graders after all); some of the more "mature" kids in the class pointed out that this name was shared by a local Gentlemen's Club. How perfect.

One of my all time favorite game was developed by a grandpa's family when he was kid. He was one of sixteen children (I know, it's shocking), and they found it an extremely fun activity. The game, called Andy Over, essentially consists of two teams standing on opposite sides of a shed. One side stands with a tennis ball and throws it over the roof of the shed, making sure that it hits the roof at least once, while yelling "Andy Over." The other side stands at the ready and attempts to catch the ball before it hits the ground. If they do, they run around the side of the shed and try to hit the opposing teammates with the ball. Anyone who gets hit must join the other team. When everyone becomes part of one team, the game is over. My cousins and I would persuade my aunts and uncles to play when we were younger. Every Sunday evening when we visited Grandma and Grandpa, we would het out to the shed with the tennis ball and play a game or two. The older relatives would sit in lawn chairs and watch us play. This homemade game really brought our family together.