In brief: To pass verbal message from one person to another.
Intensity: Low
Introduction: A simple childhood game that explains how messages can get distorted, and why it is important not to spread rumors.
Prop(s): None
How to play:
- Group everyone into small teams with at least 8 to 10 members in each team.
- The members of each team will form a straight row.
- Whisper a message to the first person of each team.
- This person must pass the message to the next person by whispering, without allowing anyone else hear the message.
- The person passing the message is only allowed to say it once. The person receiving the message is not allowed to ask for clarification.
- When all the last persons in each team have obtained the message, get them to share it with the whole group.
- Keep the message simple to illustrate that even simple messages can get distorted.
Variation(s):
- Use tongue twisters to make the game more challenging. Avoid using common ones that everyone has heard before. Here are some suggestions:
- “I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop. Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.”
- “Can you can a can as a canner can can a can?”
- “Picky people pick Peter Pan peanut butter, ‘tis the peanut butter picky people”
- “Lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better.”
- “The big black bug bit the big black bear,
- But the big black bear bit the big black bug back!”
- “A flea and a fly flew up in a flue.
- Said the flea, ‘Let us fly!’
- Said the fly, ‘Let us flee!’
- So they flew through a flaw in the flue.”
- “How many sheets could a sheet slitter slit if a sheet slitter could slit sheets?”