Low PrEp High FuN Party GaMEs
Head, Shoulders, Knees, Cup
A fun game with little prep! Everyone finds a partner. Place a plastic cup or paper plate between each partner. Leader shouts out at random:
Head, Shoulders, Knees, Cup (or Plate)
As each body part is called out, the players place both hands on the head, shoulders, etc.
When you say cup (or plate), they compete to grab it. The first one to grab it, wins. Other partner sits out. Winner finds another winner and repeat until final victor!
Pull the Paper
Play as an individual or a team game. Stack paper or plastic cups on top of each other with paper slips or index cards in between each of them. If played as teams, players rotate through taking a turn to yank a paper from their team cup tower. Minimally start with the tower 4 cups hight. Increase after some game rounds (practice and strategy) to make it more challenging.
Players start from top of the tower to try to yank each slip of paper without the cup toppling over destroying their tower. The cup has to land on top of the next cup in the stack, continuing each turn until there are no papers left.
Dance Detective
All you need is some music and space for your guests to stand in a circle. Choose one player to the "Dance Detective". Send the detective to another room.
When the detective has left the room, choose a player to be the "secret dancer". They will pick a dance move or motion and everyone will begin copying. After the motion is copied by all players, the detective is called back and has three guesses to choose who to secret dancer is. As the game is played, the secret dancer occasionally changes the dance move or motion (trying to do so without getting caught) and everyone needs to change with them. The detective has to keep a watchful eye to try to catch the secret dancer in the act!
Ships 'n Sailors
This a "run 'n fun" game best for outdoors for kids with lots of energy that you need to tire out!
One person to be the leader or "Captain". He has to call out different actions below. There are many variations of this game so feel free to adjust the actions as you wish. Pick and choose the best actions for your group. You can make this just a fun play game or change to an elimination game for large groups (simply eliminate anyone who cannot form the numbered group or remove players that do wrong motion/direction).
Sailors Eating - Four players have to sit in a circle and pretend to be eating.
Captain's Coming - Players must stand at attention and salute the 'captain'. Players cannot move until the captain yells, "At ease!" (If playing elimination game, the captain can try to mess them up by calling out an action. If anyone moves before they say "at ease," they're out.)
Scrub The Deck - Players must squat on the ground and scrub the deck.
Ships - go to the left
Sailors - go to the right
Hit the Deck - drop to lying on the floor
Seasick - go to the back and pretend to throw up
Person Overboard - Two player pair up, with one lying on the ground, second person standing but holding their partner's hand & their other hand reaching up
To Your Lifeboats - Five players have to sit in line rowing their lifeboat. a row with the two on the end holding their hands out to make a boat shape and the person in the middle rows the boat.
Find North - Three players have stand in a group and point in one direction.
4 Corners
Identify different corners or areas of the room as 1, 2 3, 4. For younger players, you may want to put up pieces of paper with numbers on them. Choose a leader. The leader turns their back to the game area, closes their eyes and slowly counts down "4....3....2...1", while the rest of players run to a corner to stand in. When the leader reaches the count down (and still with eyes closed), they randomly choose a corner number and shout out "Corner ___ !!" Leader opens their eyes and anyone in that corner is eliminated. Leader closes their eyes again and repeats the process again. As the number of players gets smaller, you can just use corners 3 and 4. Play until one guest is left. Repeat play, letting guests take turns being the leader.
Hula Hoopla
Have your guests form a circle, holding hands. For a large group, divide up into 2 or more teams. The goal is to pass a hula hoop completely around the circle as quickly as possible without breaking handholds. For a single team, set a timer and repeat play with goal of seeing how fast they can complete the challenge. If multiple teams are playing, the first team to pass the hula hoop around the circle wins. To up the challenge, add a second hula hoop on the opposite side of the group, with each hoop being passed in opposite directions.
Poop the Potato
A hilarious one for photos and videos! Divide guests into teams for this relay race where each person puts a potato between their knees and waddles their way without dropping to their team bucket to "poop the potato" in. Player runs back and tags next person in line. First team to get their potatoes in their bucket wins.