Play two truths and one lie
Before you begin
- Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to 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.
Fact or fiction
- Everyone should take a couple of minutes to come up with two true facts and one lie about themselves. People should try to make all of the facts about them as believable as each other. This makes it trickier to tell which one’s the lie!
- The first person should read out their truths and lie to the rest of the group.
- Everyone should take it in turns to ask some questions that help them figure out which statement is a lie.
- Everyone should vote on which statement they think is the lie.
- The person who went first should reveal which statement was a lie.
- The next person should read out their statements. Everyone should repeat steps three to five.
- Everyone should keep playing until they’ve all had a turn at revealing their lie – and know each other that little bit better.
Reflection
This activity is designed as an icebreaker to help everyone get to know each other a little better. Making people feel welcome and comfortable is really important, whether you play a game or have a friendly, inclusive chat.
How could people make others feel welcome and comfortable, especially if they’re new? People could think about making an effort to ask them a question, giving them a turn in a game or a role in an activity, or helping introduce them to everyone else.
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.
- Online safety
Supervise young people when they’re online and give them advice about staying safe. Take a look at our online safety or bullying guidance. The NSPCC offers more advice and guidance, too. If you want to know more about specific social networks and games, Childnet has information and safety tips for apps. You can also report anything that’s worried you online to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command. As always, if you’ve got concerns about a young person’s welfare, including their online experiences, follow the Yellow Card to make a report.
Making the lies as believable as possible (or the truths as unlikely as possible) will make guessing much trickier.
An adult volunteer or young leader could go first to help everyone understand the game.
It’s up to each player whether they read out their facts or write them down.
People should only reveal what they feel comfortable sharing. There’s no pressure to get super personal or deep.
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
This activity is a great way to get to know everyone a bit better. Consider allowing time for breakout discussions on any hobbies or interests people’s statements have revealed.
This activity gives young people the chance to decide what they reveal about themselves.