Party Games - S's
Sense-Sational
Test their powers of smell! Fill paper bags with a variety of items that have an aroma, such as coffee beans, salami, toothpaste, orange peels, chocolate, and so on. Be sure the smells are familiar to the age group. Then pass the bags around and let the kids smell them without looking inside! Give prizes to whoever guessed them all correctly (or whoever guessed the most correctly).
Shoes in the Dark
It's best to play this game with a lot of people with different sized shoes. Most fun when it is dark. Have everyone take off their shoes and put them in a big pile. Then tell everyone to go and sit far away from each other and far away from the shoes. Mix up the shoes as best you can, then go and turn off the lights. (Make it as dark as possible). Then, one by one, have the birthday kid call out people's names. When a person's name is called, they have five seconds to make their way to the shoe pile and grab two shoes. (The point is for them to be different.) Then they can go back and put them on (well, try to) while the birthday kid calls out everyone's names, putting them in the middle somewhere. Each time the birthday kid calls someone, they say 'Go!' and everyone can count down from five to zero, that way the person can't stay to find their own shoes.
Silent Charades.
On little pieces of paper, write up a bunch of things to act out in pairs. You will need to know how many people are going to play so that you have the correct number of papers. (2 pieces of paper with the same thing on it--ie: ballerina, ballerina, elephant, elephant, etc.) Put them all into a hat mixed together and have everyone draw out one piece of paper. When everyone has a charade, say go, and everyone begins to act out the charade on their piece of paper. The object of the game is to find the person with the same charade as yours. When you find the person that has the same thing as you, sit down on the ground. After the game is over, have everyone ask their partner what they were, if they were wrong they are out. There can also be a prize for the first pair that sits down. This game is the most fun when you can make each thing pretty difficult to act out.
Simon Says
The children all stand facing the organizer who asks them to duplicate his or her actions by saying "Simon Says do this" followed by the action (hands in the air, stand on one leg, touch your ear, etc). Any action preceded by the words "do this" without the "Simon Says" part are not to be duplicated. Each time a child performs a "do this" action they join the panel of judges until a winner is found.
Sock Game
Do you have a lot of single socks, well this game is for you. Get two plastic storage containers, empty boxes, or laundry baskets and place a bunch of socks in each basket, split your kids up into two groups. One group for one basket and the other group for the second basket, have the same number of socks in each basket. You'll need to have one player from each team as contestants. Set up a starting line a few feet from the basket and when you are ready say "Go." The kids will then go to the basket and put on as more socks as they can in 60 seconds. At the end of 60 seconds, you'll need to count how many socks they are wearing, you have the rest of the kids help you count socks as the kids take them off, doing one kid at a time. The kid with the most socks on wins! Then you let the next two kids go, until all the kids have had a turn.
