My co-worker and I have been asked to handle the icebreakers & intro activities for my work's upcoming "bring your child to work day." We anticipate about 30 kids. Neither of us have children, nor are we "kid people".

We lead icebreakers all the time, but mostly for corporate teambuilding, problem-solving, etc. Our repetoire does not include activities for kids.

I've gotten some ideas from google, but I know LOTS of you out there have children and surely you've had to entertain them, right?

Any ideas on a few good icebraks for kids?

I'm going to guess we'll have about 30 - 45 kids, a huge room, and maybe about $1000 budget.

it really depends on the ages. do you know what the average age will be?

I was so upset when Mandisa was told she was done I hate this show now. You know it is fixed if she was let go this fast in the game. She did do pretty bad last week but she is better then all of those other ametures.

ok i am confused. who's mandisa?

I'm guessing dannygirl got this thread confused with the American Idol thread. It's OK, it happens. Welcome

Still working on the icebreaker question for you Wheetsin.

• Simon Says ~ good for all ages
  
• Finish the story ~ start telling a story & each child takes a turn
  
• Guess the Tune ~ Hum familiar kids songs like Old McDonald, BINGO, Head-Shoulder-Knees-Toes, If Your Happy & You Know It

I'll have to check on some more for you. More to come.....

Oh, be sure to check www.familyfun.com and www.thefamilycorner.com.

Mandisa was on American Idol....this was posted on the wrong thread.

Yea, sorry about that I was on the Idol thread but I guess it switched. I am still learning how to use this site.

I'm going to guess ages will be 6 - 13, but we really won't know until the day of. Our time slot is an hour and a half.

I hope you have some valium stored up for before, during, and then vodka for after this event (for you and your co-chair, not the kids----although......)! I am a Girl Scout leader to Daisies (5-6yr olds) and Brownies (6-8yr olds) and we have 20 in our troop. We have them once a week for about 1 hour. Unless these kids already know each other, they will be stand-offish and shy for the first 10-15 minutes. This is a good time to inform them of the sequence of events and to do some sort of introduction game. We always have a craft planned (if not a field trip or other girl scouty thing that fills in for craft time), refreshments, and then a closing game (to bide the time until the late parents arrive to pick them up). You need something physical like a game because once kids warm up, they need to MOVE! I could write more, go into detail, and send links but first you'd need to post the age range and purpose of this event. $1000 is a dream! Wow! My most expensive party was $450 and that involved a baby leapard, a toothless lion, and a really stinky nasty tempered marmoset. Oh what I could do with $1000!!!

This is out of my league....sorry my things are more for preschoolers and toddlers. I also missed the part of the $1000 budget. Definitely do a craft!! Child.com is more for the age range your looking for. Here's another link for you: http://www.child.com/child/category.jhtml?categoryid=/templatedata/child/category/data/1131564720344.xml.

The vodka is a good idea....maybe I should try some. Good luck!!

Yeah I think a craft would be great! Maybe some ceramics that they can paint? With that budget you could do a few different ceramics that would really go a long way. or maybe have a magician come in, then have little magic kits for the kids to play with afterwards... They could break up and do magic tricks for each other. My daughter got a magic kit for christmas, and i think it was under 20 bucks. for a budget of $1000 you could easily fit that in, plus a magician, plus refreshments. and the kids have something to take home and show their parents.

When I worked at a day care we always did the name game when meeting new people, you suggest that they have to say something they like or do for fun that rhymes with their name. Ex: My name is Kim and I love to Swim. This way they can associate an activity with a person and remember their names better. We would also make name tags while doing this with our name and a drawing of what rhymed with it. You can make up ones for your names to give them ideas. Kids love to talk about themselves normally so hopefully this helps! Hopefully Bart isn't in there! HA!

Thanks for all the ideas, I'm still waiting to hear the age ranges. Sign-up ended Friday so I should get that info soon.

We arranged for Ident-A-Kid to come in for part of the day, but we still need to fill about an hour and a half.

I'll update when I know ages!

I know a perfect thing IF you have the patience with kids of different age groups.

Each year we have scavenger hunts for our older kids bdays. It's always been a success and people have taken our ideas lol

Can you come up with ideas in the room you are holding this for and have things hidden or clues around the room for the different age groups?

You can hide prizes or have them timed and have a grand prize - Ive found each group getting a prize was easier.

Had a scavenger hunt for son's 18th bday at the mall with things like - dance the Macranea with a stranger, find a feather boa and spell out a name in your group, etc The group that had the most at the end of the time limit got $100 each - wow that was a success (execpt for the little old lady on the bench who everyone wanted to dance with! heheh)

They had little cameras that printed the pictures out then put them in a scrap book and showed the other groups.

This helps with socialization, problem solving and just plain having fun

If you like this idea, I'll grab his book and post what all we had so you can get an idea - the ranged from ages 15-18 on this particular hunt BUT it can be made for other ages also.

lisa---i am very interested in scavenger hunt info---i have 9 and 12 yr olds--this would be a fun summer activity with kids in the neighborhood--tell me what you can!!

Here is the scavenger hunt info - the only word of caution is this: if you have it at a mall, please call your mall office first to make sure it is ok to do; sometimes they say yes as long as the kids are supervised

You can adapt this by ages and place of the hunt:

Rules

1. You must have fun

2. All team members with the exception of the camera person must be with the item in question in the picture.

3. Any team member caught running, will have 50 points deducted from their total.

4. PLEASE remember to be courteous and respectful if anyone asks what you are doing.

5. The first team to return to the starting point earns an extra 20 points.

Remember the team with the most points, wins!

6. The Mall Crawl begins at 2:00pm and ends at 3:30. Teams returning after 3:30 pm will be penalized 5 poins for every 5 minutes they are late.

Remember Rule#1

7. Judging will be done when all teams have returned to the starting point.

Unruly participants will be disqualified.

The judges' rulings stand. :speechles

Complete 10 of the 12 following:

1. Take a picture of your teammates with someone from Adam Market Research.

2. Take a picture of all teammates dressing up in feather boas and waving hi to passerby's.

3. Take a picture of your teammates making the letter "J" using everyones bodies. (use the first letter of the special person the party is for)

4. Take a picture of your teammates wearing a red shoe each.

5. Take a picture of your teammates wearing crazy hats.

6. Take a picture of one of your teammate with toilet paper on their shoe coming out of the bathroom.

7. Take a picture of your teammates wearing a bra on the outside of their shirts.

8. Take a picture of your teammates getting a makeup demo (if the teammate is a guy - you get 10 extra points)

9. Take a picture of your teammates with a bird on their heads.

10. Take a picture of your teammates with a stranger doing the Macarena.

11. Take a picture of your team handcuffed together!

12. Take a picture of your teammates at a resturant wearing employees hats (ask the manager!)

Polaroid I-zone are great for this and a photo scrap book to put the pics in.

You only have 12 pictures, use them wisely.

EXTRA POINTS

50 Points

Find a 1985 Penny (son's birth year - change the year accordingly)

20 points

1. Find a 1985 Movie (take a picture) write down the movie name and date

2. Find a 1985 Toy (take a picture) write down toy name and date made

3.Find a 1985 Book (take a picture) write down name author & date

4. Find someone whose bday is September 25th have them autograph your page and exact date, time of birth etc lol

10 points

Find and BRING back any or all of the following:

1. a movie ticket stub (stand outside when a movie is letting out and ask patrons nicely)

2. A flyer from the info booth

3. A blue Bubble gum ball (candy, ball, etc)

4. A shopping bag from Sonic Trax

5. The autograph and booth of a stylist from Progression hair Salon

I asked the group to make teams, then I split them up and put people together I didn't think knew each other well and let them go out of their comfort zone of friends.

I can't tell you how much fun they had. We had a variation of this 5 different times with kids from 12-19 and they all had fun.