Youth Games

The Animal Game

Each person begins by selecting an animal, and a noise/action associated with that animal. 

For example:

Elephant: Hold nose and make a trunk with arms, and make elephant noise!
Lion: Show claws and roar like a Lion!
Snake: Join arms together, twist them like a snake and go Hiss...

Once everyone has their animal (you may need to help some of the more shy group members come up with theirs), sit everyone in a circle.  Pick one animal (suggest the Lion) to be the most "senior" or king of all the animals.  The positions get more 'junior' as you go around the circle in a clockwise direction.  The aim being to get to the Lion's seat. 

The game starts with the Lion making his noise/action, then the noise/action of another animal.  It then becomes that animal's turn to make their noise then that of another animal and so on.  The turn ends when someone makes the wrong noise/action or doesn't respond within 3-5 seconds.  That person moves to the most junior of the positions and everyone moves up one seat. 

It is quite similar to the old Matthew Mark, Luke John game.   

The more outragous the animal noises/actions, the better this game works.  It becomes a great game when some of the more shy group members come out of their shells!