Fun Initiatives for the Virtual World

Animal Charades

Set Up:  Form participants into groups of about 4 (depending on Crew size, etc.) and make sure participants know who is in their group. Create a list of animals in advance. 

1. Explain that each group will have members take turns acting out an animal (without noises, words, or writing), and the other 3 members of the group will have to guess what animal they are acting out.  Participants will submit guesses by using the CHAT feature (as opposed to using their mics because all groups will be competing at once). The Crew leader will let participants know whose turn it is in each group (to avoid the confusion and chaos of participants trying to determine that themselves in a virtual chat).  
2. The Crew leader projects the groups on their screen. Then, the Crew leader sends private messages to the participants who will be acting like animals. Once they have delivered all of the messages, the Crew leader counts down and says “go” and the student starts acting. Remind participants to make sure they can see the camera of the student in their group whose turn it is to act out the animal.
3. “3, 2, 1… GO!”
4. The Crew leader monitors the chat for the order in which the different groups guess their animals. Give 5 points for first place, 3 points for second place, 2 points for third place, and 1 point for any group that finishes the activity successfully, in a place beyond third. If this feels overwhelming to keep track of, you can have groups take turns acting like an animal. 
5. The Crew leader names the participants who are next up in each group, then repeats steps 3-5 until each student has had the chance to act out an animal. Tally the points from each group and crown the winner!

Boggle

This website offers a convenient platform for participants to engage with each other in a virtual game of Boggle.

Draw a Vacation

Set up: Everyone needs a pen and a paper. The Crew leader will need a description of a vacation (describe your own or use the one below).

1. Goal: everyone will draw the same image with their eyes closed.

2. Students start with a blank sheet of paper in front of them in the landscape direction. They are asked to close their eyes and keep them closed, until directed to open them. 

3. The Crew leader directs participants at an appropriate pace: 

• • We are going on a vacation to a tropical island, so draw an island in the middle of your paper.
  • To the left of the island, draw a ship. 
  • You are surrounded by water, so put some fish in the sea.
  • This is a tropical island, so put a palm tree on the island.  
  • It is a nice day, so put some birds in the air.  
  • That ship didn’t get there by itself, so put a sailor on the ship. 
  • The sailor might get hungry, so put some coconuts on the palm tree and draw a monkey friend.  
  • It is a sunny day, so put a sun in the sky with clouds on either side. 
  • Okay everyone open your eyes and see how you did…

4. Participants can hold their drawings up to their screen and share. There is no pressure to be good because their eyes were closed!

5. Debrief with lighthearted questions: “Did anyone get their coconuts onto their palm tree?” or “ Did anyone’s drawing go off the page?”

Kahoot

Set up: 

1. Ask participants to send you their answers to these questions, privately via email or Google Classroom. Ensure that their answers cannot be viewed by anyone else, but the Crew leader. 

Sample questions to create a game. 

• • What’s your birth order?/How many siblings do you have?
  • What’s one thing you are afraid of?
  • What was your comfort item as a baby/little kid?
  • Where in the world do you want to live when you grow up?
  • What’s one superpower you wish you had?
  • The last time you left the house, where did you go?
  • What’s your favorite color? Food? Movie?
  • Who’s your celebrity crush?

2. Create a Kahoot quiz with (at least) one question for every participant. 

Here are sample questions for the game:  

• • I am afraid of spiders and heights.  
  • Which of us preferred flying over any other superpower?  
  • 4 people in our Crew are the oldest child. Which Crew member listed below is NOT the oldest? 

3. Play!

Pictionary

Set up: Decide if you want to guess via the chat box or aloud. Decide which platform would be best: Whiteboard via Zoom or Skribbl.io.

1. Divide participants into two teams. 
2. One person draws the word or phrase, using images and no words, while the other people on their team guess what they are portraying. 
3. A team earns a point if they guess correctly.  

Use this word generator and send the word to the student privately or to the whole group so they can retrieve their word when it’s their turn to go.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Set up: Depending on the group size you may want to decide the order in which participants play. 

1. Engage in a marathon round of rock paper scissors. 
2. Two participants play against each other and then a winner moves on until there’s a single champion!

Secret Motions

Set up: The Crew leader will choose 4 Secret Motion Leaders BEFORE the Crew zoom call. Email them in advance to make sure they understand the game, their role, and the order in which they will be the leader. Since there are 4 SM leaders, the group can play up to 4 rounds, if there is time. (Tip: ask SM Leaders to make subtle changes between movements so that it is not obvious who is the SM Leader).

1. Goal: The group has to figure out who is instigating the “Secret Motions” 
2. Tell the participants they are to figure out which person is making the Secret Motions and that this person was chosen ahead of time.  
3. The first motion will be clapping and then as you see new movements, follow what you see.  
4. Each round will be about 45 seconds to a minute long.  
5. After the round, type your guess about who is the Secret Movements Leader into the chat box.  After everyone has guessed, the SM Leader can reveal themselves! 
6. Helpful hints to share with participants via screenshare or into the chat box once everyone is signed on:

• • Put your screen on gallery view 
  • When the round starts, we all start clapping in unison
  • When you see a new movement follow the new movement you see
  • Crew leader will call the round to an end, you will guess who the Secret Movement Leader in the group chat is

Two Truths and a Lie

Set-up: Have the participant instructions slide presented for participants to see using your virtual meeting platform’s screen share feature.

1. As participants enter the meeting, make sure they are following instructions posted on the slide. Some may need tech support. Once everyone has entered, post your two truths and a lie into the chat box.
2. Ask for a volunteer to go first. That person will state their name, and then remind everyone of the 3 statements they entered in the chat. Everyone should hold up 1, 2, or 3 fingers to indicate which of the statements they believe is the lie, then the person will reveal which statement was the lie. That person should call on the person they’d like to go next.
3. After everyone has gone, you can debrief by asking some volunteers to share some of the most surprising truths they heard, or ask them to give a little context to some of their own truths they shared. Alternatively, you can encourage people to connect about some of the truths that were shared after the meeting and get straight to your meeting agenda.

Modifications/Extensions:

If you have a group that loves competition, you can keep a tally of how many people were “tricked” by each person’s lie. The person who “tricked” the most people wins! (If you choose to do this, you may want to create a modified participant instructions slide explaining that it’s a competition!).

What I Need

Set-up:  Have the participant instructions slide presented for participants to see using your virtual meeting platform’s screen share feature.

1. As participants enter the meeting, make sure they are following instructions posted on the slide. Some may need tech support. You should also type your responses!
2. Announce that everyone will be asked to state their name, their two words, and the reasons they chose those two words as their top priorities right now.
3. Ask for a volunteer to share first. Then, ask if anyone else chose one of the same words as the person who just shared, and if so to raise their hand or flag in. The person who shared should call on one of those people to go next. If no one raises their hand, then the person can call on anyone.

Modifications/Extensions:

You can ask participants to choose a “color pack” instead of specific words. You can also group people based on the color they chose.

What’s Different?

Set-up: Form participants in groups of 3. A timer would be helpful. 

1. Explain that each group will get a turn to turn their camera off and change 1 thing per person about their appearance that’s visible to all participants (eg. remove glasses, take off necklace, change your hair, etc).
2. Group re-activates their cameras, and the rest of the crew has to discuss what’s been changed. They have one guess for each of the participants in the group whose turn it is (eg. group of 3, 3 guesses).  For each change that the Crew DOESN’T guess, that group earns a point.
3. Have each group take a turn, potentially doing a tie-breaker round if multiple teams are tied.

Would You Rather

Set up: Crew Leader prepares a list of questions that asks participants to choose between two crazy items, impossible opportunities, or weird scenarios. 

1. Pose the question, have participants enter their answer in the chat box, and ask a few participants  to share why.
2. Asking why leads to a light hearted conversation and simultaneously builds community. 
3. Helpful hints:

• • Sample questions can be found here and here. 
  • Ask participants to volunteer their own once they get a hang of the game.
  • Questions we suggest:
    • Would you rather have one real get-out-of-trouble-free card, or a key that opens any door?
    • Would you rather go back to age 5 with everything you know now or everything your future self will learn?
    • Would you rather be able to control animals (but not humans) with your mind or control electronics with your mind?
    • Would you rather have a flying carpet or a car that can drive underwater?
    • Would you rather give up watching TV/movies for a year or give up playing games for a year?

Zoom In

Set up: Crew leaders will share their screen and play this Youtube video starting 48 seconds in (no sound necessary, just the screen image.) 

1. The video has pictures of different objects, taken very close up, the video will zoom out and the image gets easier and easier to guess.  
2. When participants have guesses of what the image is they should type it into the group chat as soon as they have an idea of what the image is. 
3. Participants will try to be the first person to guess what the image is in the group chat.