A Christmas tree, sweets and tangerines are good. But not enough. Ask any child what would make him very happy for the New Year, and he will answer: the company of friends and New Year competitions. Organizing festive leisure time for several children is not an easy task, but it cannot be called impossible either.
To arrange an unforgettable children's New Year, you do not need to have teaching talent - you need to be able to choose the most interesting ones for children of a certain age from all the games and competitions.
Its Kids knows exactly which New Year competitions children will like. We hasten to share this information with our readers.
New Year's Express
Stations are located along the school floor. At each station with the corresponding name you need to perform a certain task, for example, “Poetic” station - tell a poem about winter or New Year (4 lines), “Pesennaya” station - sing a song about the New Year (4 lines), “Sportivnaya” station - each team pulls out a forfeit: “jump”, “sit down”, “jump on one left” and so on (4 times); station “Art” - draw 4 New Year heroes and so on. The guys are divided into teams with the same number of participants, approximately 5 people each. At the command “start”, the members of each team become a train and go to the stations, whoever managed to go where. The team that travels around all the stations faster than others and completes the tasks best will be the winner.
New Year's messages
The guys stand next to each other. The first participant is given a sheet of paper and a pen. The first participant writes on a piece of paper any sentence on a New Year’s theme (you can come up with any topic, for example, “New Year’s fairy tales” or “New Year and everything connected with it”). Sentences must consist of 3 words, not counting conjunctions and prepositions, for example, “The Snow Maiden loves ice cream” or “A Christmas tree was born in the forest.” So, the first participant writes a sentence and wraps a piece of paper (according to the size of his line). Next, the first participant passes the piece of paper to the second participant, and he writes his proposal on top of the previous participant’s line and also hides it by wrapping the piece of paper. This continues until the last participant. As soon as the last participant has written his proposal, he passes the piece of paper to the first participant. The first participant “turns” the piece of paper to the last line, reads the sentence and shows its contents with gestures to the second participant, and he must understand or guess what was written in the sentence. As soon as the second participant guessed right, he receives a piece of paper, “turns it back” one more line (the line that the penultimate participant wrote, that is, the movement goes one line at a time from the end of the sheet) and tries to show it to the third participant. The last participant shows the first. All participants will receive prizes in this fun and maybe even funny (it all depends on the imagination and charisma of the participants) game.
Team games-competitions
Girls can play against boys, or mixed teams can be selected for competitions.
Staff for Santa Claus
Props:
- two sticks,
- long tinsel.
Two teams simultaneously begin to wrap their sticks with colorful tinsel. The condition is that all the tinsel must be used.
Whose team does this faster and more beautifully will win.
Collect cold pieces of ice
Props:
- two sets of multi-colored New Year's puzzles,
- several gloves.
Teams, at a signal, put on gloves and begin to assemble puzzles. The first team to assemble will win.
Game option. Gloves can be worn on two or only one hand. It depends on the age of the children.
Snow fight
Props:
- a few chairs,
- balloons (10-12 pieces for each team).
Chairs are placed in a row in the middle - this is the boundary of the fortress. At the signal, two teams playing from different sides of the “fortress” must throw balls of their color into the opponent’s territory. Whichever side has fewer balls after the stop signal wins.
Magic wands
Props:
- Balloons,
- two sticks,
- two bags or two small inflatable pools.
The first team players use their “magic wands” to push the ball into their bags/pools, and then pass the wands to their other players.
Those who collect the most balls win.
Agile squirrels
Props:
- four baskets,
- sets of cones.
Two teams line up in chains. Each one has a basket with pine cones at the beginning, and an empty basket at the end.
At a signal, they pass each other one cone from a full basket. The winner will be those who put all the cones together faster and shout “ready.”
Game option. You can transfer balloons (they can be small air or plastic). Cubes will also work.
“Happy Snowflakes” - winter relay race
Props:
- two chairs,
- several toy items according to the number of children in each team.
Children run to the opposite end of the room/hall, take the toy from the chair and run back with it. Whose team is faster wins.
Complicating the competition. You can run not just like that, but by jumping or backwards, etc.
Shoot down the magic icicles
Props:
- set of pins,
- balls.
This is a version of bowling, only for the New Year.
The team’s task is to knock down with one blow as many magical “icicles” as possible, which grew the other way around – “out of the ground.” The older the children, the heavier and smaller the balls can be.
This mass gaming competition is good to include in the program of the holiday, which is held in a fairly large hall, sports hall or assembly hall.
Decorating the Christmas tree - relay race
Props:
- two artificial small trees,
- two sets of unbreakable Christmas tree decorations in boxes,
- two chairs.
Two teams must quickly decorate their New Year's tree. To do this, they must take a toy from the box on a chair, run to the Christmas tree, hang the toy and run back. And so does every child.
Those who do it first win. Extra points can be given for neatness and beauty.
Centipede caterpillar
Props: balloons.
Children stand one after another in two chains. There are balls sandwiched between them that cannot be touched or adjusted with your hands. On command, the “caterpillars” must move to the opposite end of the room without dropping the balls.
The first centipede to crawl and not lose a single ball wins.
Option 1.
The game can be complicated: teams can not only run to the opposite wall/chair, but the captains will take another ball there, and everyone will come back.
Option 2.
Children take hold of the shoulders of the person in front, and the balls are clamped either in the knees (kangaroos) or in the ankles (penguins).
Don't lose the snowball
Props:
- badminton or tennis rackets,
- artificial snowballs or small balloons.
This is a variation of the traditional relay race. Team members need to carry snowballs/balls on rackets to the designated place and return back.
Fairy broom
Props: 2 brooms with handles (you can take mops).
Since Baba Yaga carried away and hid the Snow Maiden and she needs to be saved, she must learn to fly on a magical transport.
Children sit on a broom in twos, “fly” to the indicated place and return, passing the props on to their teams. Whose team is faster will win.
Competition option. You can organize a relay race on scooters or move around on “snow” skates.
Complication: children go around obstacles along the way (Christmas trees, cubes, skittles, chairs).
Catch a snowball
Props:
- 2 sets of artificial snowballs (you can take plastic balls),
- 2 large bags/baskets.
The participants of the game are divided into 2 teams, in each one one is selected who has a large empty bag/bag/basket in his hands.
The rest of the children, at the signal, begin to throw snowballs into their bag and stop at the command. The winner is the team that catches the most snowballs.
Winter fishing
Props:
- 2 fishing rods with magnetic hooks,
- winter pictures with pasted magnets depicting nature, gifts, fairy tale characters, an inflatable pool (small size) or basin, or hoop,
- 2 buckets or baskets.
First, you need to put the pictures with the pictures glued into the inflatable pool/basin, the children on both sides, at the command of the leader, begin to “fish” for the fish and put them in buckets.
At a signal they stop, the catch is counted and the winner is determined.
Team of New Year's heroes
The number of categories of New Year's heroes depends on the number of children (if a separate class participates - 3-5 categories, if the whole school - 15-20). All participants line up next to each other. Participants turn their backs to the leader. The presenter and his assistants chaotically attach sheets of paper with an inscription to the participants’ backs (the inscription is the category of the New Year’s hero, for example, Santa Claus, snowman, bunny, bullfinch, etc. As soon as all participants have been assigned categories, the presenter gives the command “start”, and the guys start running and “getting to know each other.” The task of each participant is to understand who he is and find the same heroes among the others. The team that gathers together the fastest will win.
What is he like, this Santa Claus?
Elimination game. All participants stand in a circle. And, starting with any one (which will be considered the first after), the guys say one word of praise for Santa Claus. So, what is he like, our Santa Claus? Kind, magical, cheerful, beautiful, wise, sincere, generous, strong, good, bearded, mysterious, unusual and so on. Let the children show their imagination and tell everyone how they see the good wizard. And whoever doesn’t name is out. And the few guys who stay in the game until the end will receive the title of winner and prizes.
Who's in the bag?
The first participant is chosen among the guys. Santa Claus with a bag asks the participant to go to the center of the circle (the rest of the guys line up in a circle). They turn on the music, the participant visually gets to know everyone, remembering each of the guys. After about a minute, the music is turned off, Santa Claus quickly blindfolds the participant and chooses anyone from the circle, hiding him in a bag. After this, the participant’s eyes are untied. The participant must look around and guess who (describe) Santa Claus hid. If you guess right, get a prize and hand over the post to the next person who wants to participate. If you don't guess right, make your wish come true.
I'm still that actor
Each participant in turn receives a card with a certain phrase, which will need to be depicted so that others can guess what exactly the participant showed. Thus, the participant shows, the rest guess, then change to a new participant until everyone tries themselves in the role of an actor. Example phrases that cards may contain: - poor student at the board; - a crying child who wants to eat; - angry dog; — Santa Claus brought gifts; - dance of little ducks; - the street is slippery, and so on.
Looking for gifts
The guys are divided into pairs. In each pair, the participants' legs are tied: the left leg of one participant and the right leg of the second participant. All offices on the floor are closed, except for 5, for example (in a chaotic manner). In each of the open cabinets, gifts are hidden (not very far, somewhere in visible places) - boxes in wrapping paper, and inside, for example, a candy bar (the number of gifts in each cabinet = the number of participating pairs). All participating pairs stand in the same starting position. At the command “start” the couples go to pick up gifts. The couple that can quickly find open cabinets and gifts in them will be the winner.
Advent Calendar Ideas
What types of advent calendars are there? Originally it was a house (made of wood or paper) with opening windows in which children found small sweets, gifts, good wishes or prayers.
Currently, there are a huge number of variations on the theme of advent calendars.
These can be garlands of knitted socks or mittens. For example, like this:
Or classic opening windows:
Or maybe you would prefer to use envelopes or paper bags for the advent calendar, for example, like these:
You can also make an edible calendar. This one, for example:
Here are a few more interesting options, maybe you’ll want to repeat some of them or do something completely new and different:
Gray bunny bunny
A circle is laid out around the tree using A4 sheets. And the sheets are task sheets, for example: show the Nutcracker; come up with 3 rhymes for the word “Christmas tree”; find a tangerine on the tree (hang the tangerine on the tree in advance); guess the height of the holiday tree (measure in advance); name 3 words with the same root for the word “snow” and so on. The more task sheets, the larger the circle, and the better. The first participant goes to the starting position (marked with a mark - chalk or marker) and makes a jump from the starting position, trying to make the longest jump. Which sheet you jumped on is the task. Completes the task and makes the next jump, and the task sheet is replaced with another. The participant’s task is to jump around the tree in the minimum number of jumps and complete all tasks. After the first participant, the second participant enters the starting position. After all the participants, the winner is determined.
