Newspaper Fight!

[scottee]

TITLE: Newspaper Fight!
CATEGORY:  Action, 20-60 people, 7th-12th grade
MATERIALS:  Lots of newspaper, two chairs, trash bag

This paper wad battle is sure to relieve your group of their extra energy!

Divide the group into two teams.  Split the room in half diagonally (masking tape on the floor works great) and send each team to their half of the room and have them sit on the floor.  Ask each team for a volunteer who "doesn't want to get too involved".  The volunteer doesn't have to do anything except sit still in a chair in their team's back corner.  The catch is, they have to wear a paper hat that the other team is trying to knock off by throwing paper wads!  (prepare a newspaper hat for each team ahead of time)  The rules are simple.  Each team must stay on their half of the room, and their rear-ends must be touching the floor at ALL TIMES (especially when throwing).  The person sitting in the corner wearing the hat can NOT move at all.  No dodging, no blocking, no nothing.  (and since their team cannot get up off the floor, they can't use their hands to block either!)

Dump the newspaper in the middle of the room, give them a minute to start wadding up their own paper balls, and then let the mayhem begin!  First team to knock off the other team's hat wins!


TIPS:
-Make the newspaper hats ahead of time.  "Dunce cap" style hats work really well.  Just make a cone out of a sheet of newspaper and tape it secure.  Make sure the hats are all equal size so that one team doesn't get an advantage with a harder-to-knock-off hat.
-If the game ends quickly, just play again and keep track of how many times each team has won.
-Ask a few students ahead of time to bring in a bunch of newspaper for that day.  Lots of families have plenty laying around the house.
-It's almost another game just having everyone pick up the paper and get it into a trash bag when you're done.  Crumpled up paper can still be recycled!
-This is a great game to have your leaders participate too!  Just join a team and "accidentally" hit a lot of students with paper wads!
-Works best in a square room that's 20-30 feet wide.



VARIATION:
If you have more than 30 or so people, you can have four teams, divide the room into fours, and then have four people in the corners wearing hats.  Last team with their hat still on wins!

[gary20]

cool game, thanks for sharing them!

[black_cat]

looks good for a retreat/big conference type setting.

[scottee]

I should say that this game is still possible with smaller teams than I listed.  In our church's high school group, I often like to break them into four teams by their four grades, and sometimes the freshmen or sophomore team will only have like 5-6 people.  More people just means more chaos, and more chaos means more fun.