Fundamental activities?

Question

i need some fun learning activites for kids for my camp, so if you have any FUN strategy and learning activities, then please help.

for example, you know that game, the one where everybody holds hands, gets all tangled and uses their knowledge and math skills, etc. so get out? thats would be perfect!

the children are from preschool to fourth grade, so anything you have, it would really help!

thanks.(:

Answer 1

How about a mystery dinner? Adults often do this, but I think your third and fourth graders would get into this. Each person has a role to play, and only the "murderer" knows who the murder is, and they have dinner and try to figure out who-dunnit.

(-: Along the same lines is a simple circle game called "murder." Everyone gets a card, and the murderer is the one with an "X" on it. The murderer kills people by catching his/her eyes and winking at him/her. The murdered one can die tragically, and the other people have to try to figure out who the murderer is before they get killed.

Not great for learning, but great for strategies.

(-: And lest you think I am all about murder, many card games are good for strategy and mathematics. (-: Black jack, for example, would be good for maybe 2nd grade up? As long as they can add to 21.

Go fish is a good strategy game, and you could try it in a different language to add extra learning power. (For example, do it in Spanish or French. Or Japanese! They will have to learn the numbers 1 through 13, how to say "Do you have any ===?" and "Take a card!")

Time bomb is also a good game. See the Genki English website for an explanation. Basically, the kids sit in a circle. A kid can say up to three numbers (they do it in a row), then whoever says 13 has to do a forfeit -- like imitating a celebrity or introducing their favorite movie star or something like that. (Decide ahead of time what the forfeits are.) My special rule is that if a kid says 13 twice, then the forfeit goes backwards to a person who hasn't done a forfeit. This way, some poor kid doesn't get stuck doing forfeits everytime.

Of course, you can do Timebomb in a foreign language, too.

Try the genki english website -- they have tons of fun games that maybe you can adapt to your camp.