Easy Children's Games

Musical Chairs

• Both small and large groups of children can play musical chairs. You will need a musical source and one fewer chair than you have people. Though a radio can be used, live music or singing can also be used to add to the fun. Put the chairs in a circle facing outward and begin the music. Each player walks around the chairs slowly, waiting for the music to stop. Once it does, everyone has to scramble to find a chair to sit in. The person who can't find a chair is out, and another chair is removed. The game keeps going in this manner until one person is the winner.

What's My Line

• What's My Line is a guessing game that can be adjusted depending on the ages of the children playing. One person is selected to go first, and they leave the room, deciding on what they want to be. For example, the child decides he wants to be a police officer. He can't reveal what he is, but instead will answer questions from the group about what he would need to buy in order to be this person. In this case, if someone asks "do you need a badge" or "do you need a uniform" the person would say yes, because police officers wear both badges and uniforms. Once someone guesses correctly, that child comes forward and decides what he wants to be, and the game begins again.

Telephone

• A group of children sits in a straight line. The person at one end of the line begins by whispering a sentence into the ear of the person next to him. He can only say it once. That person in turn whispers what she heard into the next person's ear until the end of the line is reached. The last person then stands up and says what he heard. Often, the end result is much different from the original sentence, causing laughter and fun. The game can be repeated as many times as you like.

War

• This game requires a deck of cards, which is evenly divided among all the players. If there are cards left over, leave them out of the game. Each player then deals the first card from his hand face up. The person with the highest card wins all the cards and add them to his hand. If the highest card is a tie, the players in the tie then deal three cards face down and one face up. From the face up cards, the highest card wins all the cards on the table. Play keeps going like this until someone has all the cards and is declared the winner. Alternately, the winner can be the person who gets rid of all his cards first.