The Levitan Website
A personal website
King of the Jungle
Minimum number = 7
The children sit in a circle on chairs, one of which is the "throne" -
the nominated king (or queen) sits here. Each child, including the king,
decides on an animal and shows the group the action and noise that goes
with it - e.g. a snake might hiss and make sinuous side-to-side moves
with hands held together, and a donkey might "he-haw" and wave it's ears
using hands above the head. The king starts the game by making his/her
own noise and action and then the noise/action of another animal in the
circle. The receiving child must immediately make their own noise and
action and then the noice/action of another - but not the one who has
just been. This continues until someone makes a mistake. At this point,
they must abandon their seat and go to the end of the line (the seat to
the right of the king) and everyone else moves up one seat to the point
where the abandoned seat is vacant. Play then continues as before, with
the king restarting to game. The aim is to try and unseat the king and
become the new king, but of course you cannot make the king's
noise/action if he/she has just done yours, so you have to wait until
someone else has nominated you before you can then try and unseat the
king.
Diagrams on the right illustrate the sequence (click to open larger version).
A harder version of the game is that at the start, each person's nominated animal gets assigned to their chair. Thus once someone is unseated, as everyone moves up they have to now take on the animal for the chair that they now occupy! The rest of the gameplay is the same.
I Pass This...
Minimum number = 7The children sit in a circle on chairs. One child (the detective) leaves the room and the rest decide on an action the detective will have to guess, e.g. tapping one's right foot on the floor. The "detective" is called back into the room, and the children in the chairs pass a bean bag (or similar small object) from one to the next. As they pass the object they either do the action or they don't. If they do the action they say "I pass this correctly". If they don't do the action they say "I pass this incorrectly". When passing incorrectly they may perform any action to go along with it, so long as it not the correct action. The detective has to guess the action.
For smaller children the actions should not be too subtle!
