1st Edition Winter 2017 Programmer’s Codex EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO RUN A SUCCESSFUL SUMMER CAMP! COMPILED AND EDITED BY CHRISTIAN REED Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………….…2 Icebreakers……………………………………..…………..7 Small Group Games……………………………………...17 Large Group Games …………………………………..…39 YCT Games…………………………………..…………....91 Minute to Win It Games…………………………………126 Flag Raising Activities………………………………….130 Nature Exploration Activities…………………………132 Arts & Crafts…………………………………..………… 138 Science Based Crafts……………………………….....160 Party Games, Riddlers, & Brain Busters………......166 Miscellany……………………………………………......173 Spiritual Metaphors……………………………………..179 Campfire Songs………………………………………….183 Tips to Make It a Memorable Summer……………….189 Sources……………………………………………………194 Index….……………………………………………………195 Games Resources………………………………………206 1 | P a g e Introduction Disclaimers Before anyone gets too far into this, here are some things to make clear: I do not claim ownership over all of the games in this book. My goal is to create an anthology of sorts to help those in camp programming. I also do not claim ownership of any of the pictures besides those in the Monster Mask, Acrylic Paint Techniques, Pastel Techniques, Colored Pencils Techniques, and the Artful Letters.I also claim ownership in the creation of the diagrams present in this handbook as well as the system of organization. If you have created an image or game and no credit was given to you, please let me know and I can remove it or give you the proper credit you deserve. I hope you enjoy all that is in this handbook! I think I did that part right… What is the Point? The point of this is to create a handy dandy resource for those who work in camp or youth ministry to use to have fun with their kids. Games can be hard and I know of plenty of ministry leaders who openly say that they struggle with it. Therefore, I spent many a night scouring the web, brainstorming games, and hours of tedious word processing to create a massive manual with camp ministry in mind. My original intent was to leave this behind at my camp as a tool to help those who would ultimately replace us in the future. As my last summer came to a close and I began a job as a youth leader, I found this to again be an invaluable resource to use with my kids so that they have even more fun. Therefore, if you are a youth leader reading this, please remember that this was originally done with camp ministry in mind and slowly began to incorporate youth ministry aspects. As a result, some of this may not be much help to you. 2 | P a g e How Do I Use This? What doesn’t come with a user manual? Certainly not this! This book is broken down into various sections. They are as follows: 1) Icebreakers (games that are best in small groups and focus on helping people learning names and getting to know one another.) 2) Small Group Games (games that are geared towards small youth groups or cabin groups; essentially 8-16 people) 3) Large Group Games (games that involve the whole camp or a large youth group and are often played outside and possibly in a large playing area) 4) YCT Games (Youth/Counselor Training Games) (aka Leadership in Training (LIT)) (games that are geared towards youth groups in general and counselor training programs; they work best with small to moderate size groups and meant to have some participate while others laugh and cheer on) 5) Minute-to-Win-It Games (games that are based off the popular TV show and are relatively cheap and fun play. This is more of an off shoot of YCT Games and made more sense to separate for ease than to include with the YCT section) 6) Nature Exploration (activities geared towards camps that don’t have a nature specialist. This provides a handy dandy little guide on various outdoor activities staff can do with campers) 7) Arts & Crafts (a guide to various crafts and artist techniques (teach campers the basics of painting!) that can be used for an arts and crafts activity at your camp. This section also includes a crude pricing guide to help you discern the possible cost of each) 8) Science Based Crafts (crafts that utilize a little science and are lots of fun (and messy!)) 9) Party Games, Riddlers, and Brain Busters (these are mind games that are fun to use on others and great to use with youth or campers when there is some time to kill in between activities) 10) Miscellany (various games and activities that don’t really fit in anywhere else, but are great to know and try) 11) Spiritual Metaphors (various teaching illustrations that are excellent for explaining various spiritual concepts to youth and campers) 12) Campfire Songs (a compilation of numerous campfire songs so you can add new ones or new variations to old favorites! 13) Tips (various tips and tricks that help make your summer more memorable for yourself and more importantly, the campers to get them coming back year after year) 14) Index (who doesn’t love an index that can assist with searches when looking for a particular game!) 3 | P a g e 15) Sources (citation of various places I pulled some games from that weren’t from my own brain, common knowledge, or shared with me via friends and colleagues) Within each of these sections, the games and crafts are broken down into various sub groups or elements that better classify the game as noted by the table below and set as the boxes following each entry seen below the table: Game Elements/Descriptors Color Designation Day Campers (Grades2-4) Elementary Campers (Grades 4-6) Middle School Campers (Grades 6-9) High School Campers (Grades 9-12) Points Game Doubles as a YCT Game Staff Break Time Games Rainy Day Game Day Camper Games are games suited for campers in grades 2-4 (the ones who usually don’t spend the night). Elementary Camper Games are geared towards campers in grades 4-6. Middle School games are obviously geared to campers in grades 6-9, and High School games are meant for campers in grades 9-12. These are the basic age differences that separate the games. Some games just aren’t meant for certain age groups. In an attempt to save discernment on your part as the reader, I’ve grouped them based on how other websites grouped them and my own opinion. Some games are adaptable and can be used for elementary campers through high school campers; if this is so, it will have a yellow, green, and blue box following its entry. Points Games are games that have score values associated with them and can be used for camp wide competitions (kind of like how Hogwarts had a yearlong school competition using points with the winning house being declared at the end of the year (if you read Harry Potter)). These are games that we used to help promote healthy competition with our week long Cabin Cup game where cabins were teams and competed for points to win at the end of the week. ‘Doubles as a YCT Game,’ means that while these are listed as camp games, they can be used for youth groups or counselor training programs with middle school and high school students. Games such as Capture the Flag would fit into this category. This is simply a way of avoiding writing the same games two or three times and taking up unnecessary space. If you 4 | P a g e see the lime green box after a game, it means that you could use this in your youth group or with your camp’s counselor training program. The camp I worked at had what we called ‘RC Time’.’ At this time, we’d gather all of the campers into the gym and the program leaders and work crew would take over for thirty minutes which allowed the counselors a break to recharge. We, as a leadership team, made it a priority to care for our employees physically, mentally, and spiritually. This was one way we did that. Here, I’ve called them Staff Break Games or simply Break Games. These are meant to encourage participation from all or nearly all campers for thirty minutes. They are great fun and usually easy to do. Instead of making a whole new section dedicated specifically to these types of games, I felt it easier to simply add the black box at the end as there were plenty of games that could double as a standalone group game and be used for thirty minutes to entertain kids. Rainy Day games are…you guessed it! They’re games you can play while it is rainy. We realized that if a rain storm came in, we didn’t a back-up game as most of ours were indoors. A lot of group games can also be adapted to be used indoors so I felt it unnecessary to create a whole other section just for these when you could simply look under ‘Large Group Games’ and look at all the games with the teal box following their entry. The sections are meant to be more broad categorizers and, in my opinion, a more useful break down for camp leaders who are looking for games. This is how I typically searched for games. If we needed a large group game for day camp, I flipped to the Large Group Game section and looked for all the games with red boxes. For us, this made game scheduling much easier and allowed us more time to work on the details of the games (i.e.