The Animals
This game quickly becomes hilarious when the group gets
into it. You just need to make a list of animals, the cries of which the
participants need to imitate and identify. You put down the name of each animal
twice and you need half as many animals as there are players – you need an even
number of players. If there is an odd number, the game leader can name an
assistant or just become a participant. (NOTE :
you can prepare a list of animals ahead of time and just ignore the names of
the ones you won’t use – see the one provided below). You cut up the list so
you just have one animal name on each piece of paper. You then give a folded
piece with one animal name to each player. The players do not reveal their
animal to anyone else. Once the distribution finished you should have sets of
two players, each unknown to each other having the same animal. At the start signal, all the players converge
to the center of the room and start walking about making the sound of the animal
on their paper slip. No talking or miming. When one recognizes the sound
of his twin animal, the players go and sit down together; they then compare
their slip and if it matches they stay there; if they do not match they get
back in the group and keep on looking for their counterpart. The game goes on
until all the animal pairs are matched. The last two players to sit down are
the loosers and will be now asked to mime, with no
sound, their animal so the group can identify it too. Each duo must then mime
their own animal unless they are too shy in which case the loosing team has to
do it for them. If the group is unable to identify the mime, the original team
has to step in and try. If they too are unable to have their animal identified
the game leader reveals the animal to all. Since this team was unable to convey their animal, this
team now becomes the substitute team for any other team too shy to do their
own. The game is over when all the animals have been identified. It is
important for the players to NOT reveal their animal to other groups.
Here is a list already prepared (will suffice for up to 52 participants:
LAMB LAMB