Fun

A running list of some of my favorite activities. Not all have yet been done, many are inspired from other people having done them, and all of them are up for creative interpretation. Figured it would be fun to share. Make a pull request to suggest any.

Themes

• holiday party (we do this at the end of every summer): come up with 5-6 different holidays (e.g. birthday, the olympics, your friend's bar/bat mitzvah, valentines, new years) and celebrate them all over the course of one night.
• anything but cups (byo and get creative-- e.g. pool noodle, lined kleenex box, pie tin)
• scouts (everyone has a sash. make a bunch of stickers (patches) and distribute them as the party develops. leave some to make during. (e.g. bonfire badge, coolest t shirt, tallest beer staff, latest arrival))
• backpack party (everyone brings something to share in a backpack (e.g. bouncy balls, lollipops, drinks, a bunch of loose pizza slices). everyone is now a mystery box)
• yearbook (construct a yearbook over the course of the party. draw attendees in as they enter, assign them to a class / staff member / superlative. people sign over the night. draw memories and inside jokes in.)
• anagram (dress, foods, activities, decoration)
• slumber party (build a fort, make a poor-quality imovie music video, giggle)
• business informal
• iambic pentameter (dress, foods, activities, decoration)
• owl (it was a hoot)
• negative space
• pity party
• club penguin (dress, hidden pins, foods, drinks, decor)
• wii (dress, activity, decor)
• waiting room to the what?
• art museum at home
• Holes, by Louis Sachar
• smelling bee: self-explanatory?
• spelling bee
• unbroken: everybody bring something they've broken, and we mend it together. kintsuge, patching, etc...
• science fair: everyone comes with a prepared tri-fold
• lists: share your lists

Food themed

• recipe swap / potluck
• zoo pals, bento boxes, thali boxes, and others
• custom fortune cookie
• sandwich club (idea borrowed from some incredibly fun people from my high school): everyone comes with a sandwich ingredient. no coordination beforehand. make and eat sandwiches
• smoothie club: everyone bring a blendable ingredient and mix it into a smoothie for the group to drink
• flavor guess baby foods
• watermelon carving competition
• find and make surprising foods (e.g. the toast sandwich)
• pickle something
• saltine challenge
• cafeteria line setup speakasy
• race to eat a head of lettuce
• chopped: come up with your own rubric though, and have one or two secret rubric items (e.g. number of times chefs swore while cooking this dish)
• cookie face
• cereal bar

Misc. activities

• quadrant charts. (examples: attendees draw bears on post-it notes upon entry, they are plotted on power vs. style chart; plot the spoons and forks in the house on a chart of kiki/bouba vs. would eat something sweet /spicy with it)
• powerpoint karaoke. either: (1) everyone submits a deck of slides beforehand; you are assigned a slide deck (you have never seen before) at random and must present it as your own. (2) present some old set of slides initially intended for a different audience (why do i have so many once-used slide decks)
• pinning. put up a bunch (A BUNCH) of post-its of oddly specific pegs (e.g. "someone who wore too much neon in 7th grade", "waits 2 gates away from your actual gate at the airport to seem mysterious", "doesnt do the cricket foot rub to get dust off their feet before getting in bed") and throughout the night everyone adds more / assigns them to people. "you peg me as..."
• 52-card pickup tournament
• everything you could be doing while taking a passport photo. inspiration
• pacer test... but with something other than running? e.g. comes up with a new compliment for or fun fact about someone in the room
• walk the fastest mile
• feely cup: put some stuff in a cup. blindfold somebody and they must guess everything in there using touch alone.
• leg wrestling; sock wrestling; hand joust
• competitive OFFensive twister
• draw someone's face without looking at your paper or picking up your pen
• picture telephone (online version: gartic phone)
• picture telephone v2: you get 10 seconds to look at a photo, then you redraw from memory. pass it on until the end of the line.
• shake and pop
• the oinking game: one person is blindfolded and everyone else lines up on the other side of the room. one person at a time oinks and the blindfolded person guesses who it was
• guess whose handwriting
• guess the autofill: share the beginning of a search engine prompt (e.g. "how do we") and everyone guesses what the top searches are
• guess that song but under modifications (e.g. kids bop covers, bell towers covers, echoed)
• cardboard
• wear as many t shirts at once as possible
• fill in the silhouette: cast a funky shadow on a large paper. trace it. fill it. make it look like something else)
• fishbowl
• wavelength
• sip-and-clay (recommend: air-dry clay) + any other art medium to make it multimedia
• room picture: everyone bring picture of their bedroom and people have to guess who it belongs to
• nerf battleships: one person blindfolded with a nerf gun. every else must move around the room without getting shot.
• cookie pocket: buy a giant party platter of cookies from the supermarket, and you try to reverse-pickpocket cookies into people's pockets. Try to avoid getting caught, and try to catch others cookie-ing you.
• make a zine. or more, ideally. keep doing it and never stop.
• don't want to do a full 5k, 10k, or more-k? make your own race, maybe a 1k, and make it as fun as you want.
• deciphering magic eye posters