Nick Dow's blog : Games with children for the New Year: what to play with the whole family
New Year is a family holiday. To prevent it from becoming boring, it needs to be properly diversified, and fun games with competitions are best suited for this. We will talk about them.
New Year's chant
We throw a lot of pieces of paper with various words on winter and New Year themes into an opaque bag. We take turns drawing them out and singing songs whose lyrics contain the missing word. Or we come up with it on the fly if we don’t remember one.
Guess what's in the bag
Now we throw into the bag not pieces of paper with words, but various objects - from coins and pens to wall clocks and electric drills. The task is simple - pull something out by touch and guess what we are holding in our hands.
Family hearth
This time we don’t push anything anywhere and just light the sparkler, passing it one by one and saying one wish at a time. On whom the fire has gone out, he will become the fulfiller of desires. What to do? Let the one who gave the fire last to the loser choose.
Angry Mandarin
Mandarin is not easy like 2024 trivia questions and answers, but its conditions are extremely simple. We divide into teams, whose participants put on mittens or gloves while trying to peel a tangerine. If it works, we pass it on to the next teammate, and so on until the winning finish.
Educational New Year's quiz
The New Year in Russia and other countries is noticeably different, and it would be a shame not to tell children about it. Or rather, even ask them themselves and reward them with candy for the correct answers - they hardly know them, but in some places they can guess logically. For example like from biology trivia questions, about this:
- This Santa Claus from a warm country carries a surfboard, wears a white beard, a red hat with a pompom, sunglasses and bright swimming trunks. Where is he from? (From Australia.)
- Which country also celebrates cattle breeding during the New Year? It is there that Santa Claus dresses like a shepherd (a fox hat on his head and a whip in his hands) and comes to the children. Where is this tradition? (In Mongolia.)
- In this country, gifts are given out not by the local Santa Claus Bobbo Natale, but by the fairy Befana with a red cap and crystal slippers. (Italy.)
- Where does Santa Claus have the extremely unusual name Joulupukki? (In Finland.)
- In which country is Santa Claus called Tagi Noel? (Spain.)
- Where does Father Frost live under the name Baba Zhara? (Cambodia.)
- In which country is there always a glass of live fish on the New Year's table? (in Ireland.)
- Where do the majority of residents go to bed at 00:10 on New Year's Eve? (In Australia, it is customary to wake up at 5-6 am and go to bed no later than 10 pm.)
- In what country do people celebrating New Year pour water on each other, and no one is offended by it? (Myanmar, where the holiday occurs during the hottest time, and dousing there is equivalent to wishing happiness in the coming year.)
- The New Year is celebrated there with great noise, literally: with car horns, people screaming and sirens wailing. (This is how they usually rejoice in Panama.)
- Where before the New Year, residents fill all the dishes with water and, when the chimes strike, they cause a real flood, also pouring liquid out of the windows? (In Cuba they do this so that in the New Year life becomes as bright and clear as water.)
- In which country will people be incredibly happy to see a lot of broken dishes at their doorstep on January 1? (In Sweden they even treat pranksters who break dishes.)
- Where during the New Year everyone tries to kiss their loved one to the sound of a gun shot? (Brazil.)
- In which country, the day before the New Year, dolls are left on the streets that symbolize the old year and explode during the New Year? (Mexico.)
- Where can you meet the New Year more than 10 times a year? (In India, where each state has its own date.)
Who am I?
Oh, what is this? This is a game that is relevant at any time of the year and in any company.
The presenter gives the participants (or even sticks them on their foreheads) cards with objects or animals, and they cannot spy on them. Only the presenter can see them. Each person takes turns asking him leading questions, to which he will answer only “yes” or “no.” Do I need to explain what the task is?
The one who correctly names the one whose card he was awarded with wins, and the one who makes a mistake is eliminated from the competition.
Wishing Ball
We all think of a punishment together and take turns blowing the balloon. Whoever bursts it in the end will become the executor.
Whoever managed it put it on
We take a free table and lay out New Year's clothes on it, be it a cap, mittens or something else. But there are fewer things in quantity than there are participants. The host turns on the music, and everyone else walks in a circle around the table and waits for the cunning host to press pause.
At this moment, you need to suddenly grab and put on any item from the table. Whoever gets nothing is eliminated. Then we remove one item and continue until the victorious finish.
New Year's letter toast
Participants take turns going through the alphabet and coming up with New Year's phrases. For example:
- Oh, how cool it is that we are celebrating the New Year together!
- Best of luck to everyone in the New Year!
- I wish you all a lot of positivity!
And so on. It will be especially fun for those who come across Y or Y.
New Year's guessing game
We divide into two teams. The first thing you need to do is name any word related to the New Year and tell it to one of the members of the opposing team. His task is to depict the word so that others can guess, using only gestures and facial expressions. When it works, we switch roles.
Congratulations from the President
We choose one participant and wish him any number of words and phrases. He must assume the role of the president of the country and use all of them in his New Year's address.
To make it funny, you need to think of something incongruous and unexpected. For example, an airship, a candibober, a cucumber, a bed, an armored personnel carrier.
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