50 Games Every Camp Counselor Should Know

A reference list for when you need a game right now—before campers go crazy

By Jared R. Knight

Relay Games

1. Frisbee Toss

Each person on a team throws a Frisbee, one at a time, to knock over all eight cones in a pyramid formation. The next person in line cannot throw until the previous Frisbee is retrieved.

Photo: © Can Stock Photo / DGLimages

Photo: © Can Stock Photo / DGLimages

2.  Grand Canyon  

Each player on a team is to walk on a 25-foot climbing rope while looking through the “wrong end” of binoculars. Add five seconds to the overall time for each time a player falls off of the rope.

3. Hula-Hoop Pass

Pass a Hula Hoop from one person to another while holding hands in a circle.

4. Ball Factory

Teams are timed to see how long they take to sort a large bucket of different types of balls into smaller buckets with one type of ball (golf balls, tennis balls, racquetballs, and baseballs). There is a five-second penalty for mixed balls in a bucket. 

5.  Wheels     

In this relay, each participant on a team runs around cones 25 feet away in the following order of vehicle wheels:

  • Unicycle (one person runs)

  • Bicycle (two people run)

  • Tricycles (three people run)

  • Car (four people run)

  • Car carrying a unicycle (four people run carrying the fifth person)

  • Car pulling a two-wheel trailer (six people run).

6.  Ping-Pong Relay

A team puts 10 ping-pong balls in a tennis-ball can by using only a bedsheet as a funnel. 

7.  Letter Plates  

Prior to the game, each letter of the alphabet is written on a separate paper plate with a set for each team. Teams then organize the plates in order from A to Z as fast as they can.

8. Backward Sponge Toss  

Teams line up in single file; each participant tosses a wet sponge behind to be caught in a bucket by a teammate. If a sponge misses, it must be thrown again until it is in the bucket. The thrower and catcher should be four feet apart.

9.  Giant Ring Toss   

In teams of eight, each participant throws a Hula Hoop over a cone from 10 feet away. This event can be timed, or teams can be assigned points for each cone covered.

10. Numbers  

Prior to the game, five circles of different sizes are cut into a large tarp. Each hole is numbered from one to five with a permanent marker. Each team rolls a tennis ball, one at a time, into a hole, starting with hole one and ending with hole five.

11. Plunger Ball Relay

A team, in a line formation, passes a volleyball from a plunger that is held in each team member’s hand to another team member for 25 feet until reaching the finish line.  Participants cannot move until the volleyball is passed, then they run ahead of the line to keep the ball moving forward. If the ball drops, the players start over, but the clock keeps running.

12. Burlap Potato-Sack Relay

Members of a team race in a tag-team relay. Each participant races, one at a time, down a course in a burlap potato sack. Upon returning, the player tags another member of the team until every member completes the course.

13. Bean-Bag Toss  

Participants have one minute to throw as many bean bags as possible into different buckets. A participant can only throw one bag at a time, and all players must take a turn in line. Six buckets are lined up with the closest bucket being worth 10 points, the next 20, and the third 30. 

14. Toxic Waste  

A team of eight people transports a 20-ounce bottle of green-colored water on a wooden platform with eight ropes that are seven feet long attached to it. Each member holds a rope, and the team walks together from point A to point B.

 
 

15. Parachuting Chickens  

Participants gather around a large recreational parachute and attempt to propel 12 rubber chickens in the air by flapping the parachute up and down in the fastest time.

16. Trolley  

With 12-inch balloons, a team of six people forms a line with the balloons between each person; the team must travel as fast as possible to cones 25 feet away and then back to the finish line.

17. Ball Chute Relay

Each player is given a piece of PVC pipe that has been cut in half, forming a long “cup-shape pipe.”  The group forms a line and is given several tennis balls, golf balls, and marbles to roll through the PVC pipes until they reach the end of the line. The PVC pipes cannot touch. The team is timed for how long it takes to complete the task.

18. Ball Transport Relay

Team members lift a large, five-foot inflatable ball two feet off the ground without using their arms and hands to transport the ball 20 feet to a cone and back to the starting area.

19. Ball Balance

The team attempts to transport several balls of different sizes, one at a time, 25 feet and then places the balls on top of a cone. During transport, each ball rests on a two-inch ring tied to eight seven-foot strings that each participant holds. Balls should start from smallest to largest, such as a racquetball, baseball, softball, and volleyball. 

20. Two-Person Bag Race

In large burlap potato sacks that can fit two people, each team races other teams to a finish line 25 feet away.

21. Family Walk

The group is divided into smaller teams or “families.” Each team is composed of a “father,” a “mother,” and “children.” The “father” goes first and walks to a cone 25 feet away and back to the “family” He then escorts family members one at a time to walk to the cone and back.

22. Sponge Relay  

Each team has two participants and attempts to fill a 16-ounce glass with water, using only a sponge. A bucket of water is placed 25 feet from the first participant on each team. The second participant races back and forth filling the sponge with water and emptying it in the glass placed on the first participant’s head.

23. Bucket Head Relay  

In groups of two, participants face each other. One person has five tennis balls that he tosses into a bucket, which is positioned on the partner’s head. The first team to get five balls into the bucket wins the relay. 

24.  Animal Relay  

Team members, one at a time, race around cones 10 feet away, walking like the following animals:

  • Crab (walking on all fours with arms behind legs)

  • Snake (crawling on the belly)

  • Rabbit (hopping on all fours)

  • Chicken (walking on knees, flapping arms)

  • Bear (walking on all fours, growling)

  • Potato bug (rolled into a round ball, doing summersaults along the way).

Repeat the order for the number of participants until everyone on the team completes the relay.

25. Earth Ball  

Participants as a team roll a large, six-foot, inflated ball around a “W”-formation course formed by 12 cones.

26. Pirate Relay  

Each participant has a Hula Hoop around the waist that represents a ship. One person is the “captain,” who yells “Go,” and everyone runs towards the finish line. However, at any time during the race, the captain can yell “Walk the plank!” and then each participant must drop the Hula Hoop, run around it three times, put the Hula Hoop back on, and continue running towards the finish line.

27. Soda Pop Game

A team of six participants manipulates a pendulum (a soda bottle that is a fourth-full), which is designed to knock over six empty soda cans that have been placed in a circle 12 inches around the pendulum. Six eight-foot pieces of string are tied at the top of the two-liter bottle for each participant to hold. All team members stand seven feet from the circle of empty cans.

28. Orange Relay (one orange per team)

In a line formation, the team, one participant at a time, passes an orange to another person, using only their necks. The team that does this the fastest wins.

Photo: © Can Stock Photo / serrnovik

Photo: © Can Stock Photo / serrnovik

Tag And Other Outdoor Games

29. Poison Ball  

The person who is “it” stands in the middle of a circle and chases a tennis ball from participants who stand around. They cannot move but play “keep away” from “it,” who tries to tag the person holding the ball.

30. Circle Tag

Couples form a circle and wait to be tagged by another couple who is “it.” “It” tags another couple, and while holding hands, runs on the outside of the circle. A new couple who is tagged must chase the couple who is “it” around the circle and back to the vacant spot. If the new couple is not successful in tagging “it,” the new couple becomes “it” for the next round.

31. Blindfolded Whipped Cream-Eating Contest

In teams of two, one participant, while blindfolded, attempts to feed a small bowl of whipped cream to the partner.

32. Puzzle Tag

The person who is “it” gives five calls to connect a group of two people to another group of two people. With every call made, the groups grow larger, like individual puzzle pieces connecting to form a large puzzle. The following calls can be given in any sequence to create different shapes of the group:

  • Knee-to-knee

  • Nose-to-nose

  • Thumb-to-thumb

  • Toe-to-toe

  • Elbow-to-elbow.

Once the human puzzle is completed, the person who is “it” calls out “break apart”; the group separates, and “it” attempts to join a group so someone else becomes “it” for the next round.

33. Camouflage

Participants try to blend into the surrounding environment by hiding behind rocks, trees, or park benches in trying not get caught by a person designated as “it” as participants move to four different bases, advancing closer to “home base.” Every few minutes, the person who is “it” counts to 25 with eyes closed while participants run closer to the next base and hide again. To be caught and eliminated from the game, the person who is “it” needs to call out by name the people seen and where they are seen at their current location.

34. Whistle Tag  

The person who is “it” stands outside a circle of people and tries to find who has the whistle. A leader of the group stands in the middle to start each round of the game. The leader keeps his back away from “it” because the whistle is pinned to his back with string and a safety pin. People in the circle pretend to pass the whistle around.

35. Candy Bar Tag

The person who is “it” chases other participants and tries to tag them before they can say the name of a candy bar. After the candy bar is mentioned, the name cannot be used again. A participant who is tagged is out of the game until the next round.

36. Sharks And Minnows Tag

This is a swimming pool game, played in the shallow part of a pool. One person is the “shark,” and all other swimmers are “minnows.” The minnows are on one side of the pool and try to swim to the other side without getting tagged by the shark. If they do, they become a shark, too.

37. Wham

Participants form a circle. Each participant puts the right hand with the index finger sticking straight out and the left hand with the palm down and the fingers stretched out. When the leader of the group says “Wham,” each participant then tries to grab the person’s finger on the left side, while preventing the person on the right side from grabbing the other person’s finger.

38. Dice and Parachutes  

A recreational parachute is used to roll two foam dice. After five flaps, the parachute is held steady to determine what numbers are on each dice. Each person is assigned a number, and if that number is on one of the dice, the person must run under the parachute performing one of the following tasks:

  • Run like a chicken

  • Waddle like a duck

  • Chug like a train

  • Buzz through the air like a bumblebee

  • Skip while reciting nursey rhymes

  • Crawl on the ground and growl like a bear.

39. Flag Scramble  

In advance, someone draws 10 flags of different countries in sidewalk chalk on the driveway with the written name of the country scrambled underneath a flag. Participants compete to identify which country a particular flag represents.

40. Four-Way Tug-of-War  

Six participants per team compete with each other in a tug-of-war contest using a commercial four-way tug-of-war rope. A cone with a raw egg is placed on the cone as each of the four teams tries to get another team close enough to the cone to break the egg.

 
 

Rainy-Day Games

41. Circle of Hands

Each participant in a circle lies on the stomach with one arm in a right-angle formation over the arm of the left neighbor and under the arm of the right neighbor. Beginning in a clockwise fashion, one person slaps the right hand on the ground once. Then, the person on the left slaps the right hand on the ground once. This routine continues until someone in the circle changes direction by slapping a left hand on the ground. A participant is out of the game if the wrong hand is slapped on the , but that person stays in the circle.

42. Four Corners

The four corners of a large room are designated spots where group members run to, while someone in the middle of the group counts to 10. Each corner is given a number from one to four. The person chosen to be in the middle is designated as “it.” Then, with eyes closed, that person yells out one of the corner’s number and quickly opens his eyes. Any participant who is not in a corner or in the wrong corner is “it” next time.

43. ABC Food Game

The group goes through the alphabet, listing all the food they can think of that start with the letter A and work through to the letter Z.

44. Seven Gargoyles

Each participant takes turns counting out loud, starting at number one and then rotating clockwise to another person, until all participants take turns counting to 100. On the number seven and any number that is a multiplication of seven, that person needs to say “Gargoyle” instead of saying the number. If the wrong number is said or a pause is longer than five seconds, that person is eliminated from the game.

45. Android

In groups of three, participants have five minutes to join in making an android, a robot consisting of four legs, three arms, and one head. Each group has to design a different-looking android that is able to walk across the room at least 10 feet.

46. Geography Food Game

The group lists a food item that has a location attached to its name, like Swiss cheese, English muffin, French toast, or German chocolate cake.

47. Keech

There are five Keech formations participants may choose when the Keech leader calls out “Keech.” The formations include:

  • Both hands on the head

  • Both hands on the neck

  • Both hands on the stomach

  • Left hand on the right elbow

  • Right hand on the left elbow.

Any player who uses a different hand formation or delays a response is eliminated from the game.

48. Mother Elephant

Participants sit on chairs in a semi-circle and choose a hand sign of an animal to represent them. The “Mother Elephant” starts the activity by contacting another player, using the elephant sign and then noting that person’s animal sign. Then that person repeats the process with someone else. The animal sign stays with the chair. If a participant makes a mistake, that person returns to the end of the semi-circle and everyone else moves up one chair.

49. Cowboy Chores

Participants stand in a circle facing each other. One person says a phrase and makes a gesture listed in the game and then calls someone else to use another of the following phrases and gestures:

  • Red barn—raise hands over head for a roof

  • Chuck wagon—pretend to eat

  • “Here chick, chick, chick”—pretend to feed chickens and stampede (run in place).

If a participant makes the wrong gesture or delays the response longer than five seconds, the person is eliminated from the game.

50. United States Game

The first person names a state, then the second person must note a state that starts with the last letter of the previous state. For example, if the first person says Utah, then the next person could choose Hawaii, then another person could say Idaho, and the pattern continues. 

 

Jared Knight is the Associate Director of Programs at Brigham Young University’s Aspen Grove Family Camp & Conference Center in Provo, Utah. Reach him at (801) 422-6864, or Jared_Knight@byu.edu.

 
 
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