Kids Games Party - Kim's Game is a real winner

Coming up ideas for your kid's party games is not always easy. The real problem is that often we try so hard to be clever, we are missing something really good games noses are simply that, under our direct.

Kim's Game is one of those -

This game is named after the character in the book of the famous spy Young Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

This is a simple memory game, simple to configure and very popular with children.

In the longer you have a tray with a preparationnumber of objects (for 7 year olds about 25 objects is about right).

Common objects might include: comb, pen, pencil, screwdriver, train ticket, wallet, mobile phone, tennis ball, marble, candle stick, key, paper clip, scrubbing brush, thimble, toy car, matchbox, coin, ruler, watch, fir cone, playing card, water pistol, dinner fork etc. You really can include anything you wish. It can be fun to add a couple of unusual objects ie a tin of baked beans or garden gnome amongst the more common items.

Divide your children into teams of between 4 and 8, you may like to assign an adult helper to each team (older children could work on their own). The children sit in a circle with the tray of objects put down in front of them and then get 2 minutes to view all the objects on the tray. Do not allow the children to pick up the objects but you could turn the tray every so often.

You then remove the tray and the children, working in their teams, have 4 minutes to remember as many items as possible. Their adult helper acts as secretary recording their answers on a sheet of paper.

After 4 minutes (or less if they run out of ideas) read out the complete list of items. The team with the most correctly remembered items on their sheet wins.

If you wanted, rather than writing the answers down, you could also have teams calling out an item they have remembered in turn, until one team cannot think of any more.

Kim's Game is a real winner at kid's parties. Children particularly like it because it's nice and simple to understand. It also makes a perfect way of calming down a party after some more boisterous games.

So at your next kids party do give Kim's Game a go and remember the great memory game that is right under your nose!

Neill Wilkins