Invent your own game

You’ll need

A4 paper
Pens or pencils
Sports equipment, such as balls, cones or beanbags

Before you begin

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Take a look at our guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Planning and setting up this activity

Set up some cones in the space, with enough for one per group
Next to each cone, place a different piece of equipment. You could use a skipping rope, a ball, beanbags, cones, paper and pens, or hula hoops.

Running this activity

Gather everyone together in a circle. Explain that everyone is going to use their imagination to think of lots of brand-new games that you could play, but the games must include using a certain piece of equipment.
Ask everyone to get into groups and give each group their piece of equipment, as well as paper and pens to write or draw their ideas.
Get everyone to think of as many game ideas as they can using the equipment they’ve been given. They should try to think of new games, rather than games they’ve played before.
Before everyone starts, encourage people to use their imagination and think differently as to how else their item could be used. It may be used for its normal purpose, or there may be another way to use it safely. It may also be the focus of the game, or it may only have a small part in the game. Everyone should make sure that all the people who want to have the chance to speak and share their ideas. All ideas should be valued and are important.
Give everyone 5-10 minutes to think of their ideas for a game using their item or piece of equipment. They may want to practice the game, so make sure to have lots of space available that groups could use.
After time’s up, each group should choose their favourite idea. Once they’ve decided on their favourite idea, give each group some more time to make the final decisions on how their game works and the rules. They should also think about how they can explain it to the rest of their group.
When everyone’s finished finalising their ideas, get back together in one big group. Someone from each group, who is happy and comfortable to, should present their game idea to all the other groups. An adult or young leader could also explain the idea, if needed.
As a whole group, ask everyone to vote on their favourite game to play out of the ideas people came up with. You could save the other games to try on future sessions too.
Depending on which game’s chosen, that group should run their game for everyone else.
If you have more time, you could let the groups rotate between each piece of equipment and have some time to think of ideas using each one. They could then choose their favourite idea, using any of the pieces of equipment, to present back to the whole group, with one being voted on to be played.

Reflection

This activity was all about being creative, trying new games, and developing your leadership skills by running activities. What did you enjoy about creating your own game? What was hard? What was it like trying to come up with a different purpose or use for the piece of equipment you had? Did anything inspire you? How did you think outside the box and what was your most creative idea?

This activity was also about teamwork. How did you all work together? Did you work together well and let everyone’s ideas be heard? Did you listen to each other? Did anyone take the lead or help make sure everyone had the chance to speak? How did you make suggestions or decisions of what the game should be? Did you let each other talk or how did you build on each other’s ideas? What could you have done differently or do better next time?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Active games: The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.