Discovery!: Throwback Games

For this spring session of “Discovery!”, we switched to a 30-45 minute format instead of the hour long program it had been in the fall. This worked so much better for our families!

I wanted to start off the session with another icebreaker type of activity so that the kids would become familiar with me and be cool with the harder/more complicated things we might try in the future. Instead of doing the parachute as an icebreaker (I did use it later on in the session!), I went with a throwback game session so that parents would also have some fun with me.

To start it off, we read two books:

Playground Day by Jennifer J. Merz
Follow the Leader by Erica Silverman

And that led us straight into our games:

1. “Follow the Leader” I played this in a slightly modified version where each child got to tell us what they wanted the group to do. Instead of having the child led the line, we just stayed in our group bunch. Most of the kids decided that we should jump, so be prepared for that possibility.

2. “Red Light, Green Light” I had the kids line up against the wall of our meeting room and stood at the other end. I turned my back to them and called “Green Light” while they all raced towards me. I shouted “Red Light” and turned around quickly to catch any kiddos that didn’t freeze in time. Since I was playing with preschoolers, we did not play for “winners” in any of the games and just played for fun. So as far as the kids know, none of these games have a winner.

3. “Musical Cushions” I wasn’t about to use chairs with preschoolers since that seemed like a recipe for disaster. As each child was knocked out, I let them control the CD player for the next round. Most of the kids decided that the best part of the day was when they got to push the CD player buttons!

4. “Duck, Duck Goose” This is where having parents help the kids was imperative, otherwise they all tried to run at the same time to chase the runner. I spent most of this game running with the “goose” to help them around the circle. Again, we didn’t play for winners, so no one was taken out by the game.

And that was it! I had a few other games in my head (Mother, May I? & Simon Says) but we were running short on time anyways. And I didn’t take any pictures since I was very busy facilitating the whole ordeal, but I sure had fun.