Charades is a classic group guessing game.
How to play
Choose a player to start the game. The player thinks of a book title, a famous person’s name, a saying, a movie title or a song title to mime. They should choose something that the other players are likely to know. If you are playing with younger children it might be worth preparing some things for them in advance.
The player then mimes the word or phrase they’ve chosen to the other players. If you are playing online, make sure everyone can see the player who is miming.
Here are some common clues used to indicate things in charades:
- Book — pretend to read a book.
- Song — pretend to sing.
- Movie — pretend to crank an old movie camera.
- Number of words — hold up that many fingers. (Then hold up one finger before miming the first word, two fingers before the second, and so on.)
- Number of syllables — put that number of fingers against your forearm.
- To mime a word that rhymes with the word you want players to guess, first tug on your ear to say “sounds like.”
Take it further
There are lots more group games in the book Games, Games, Games, a publication with around 250 group games. The games are essentially co-operative in nature and develop skills and attitudes which encourage learning together and supporting one another.
If you’ve enjoyed playing this and want another game, try Job Interview.
