New Year's Eve Games for Kids

New Year's Eve Scramble: Write a bunch of different words on a piece of paper that have to do with New Year's Eve and scramble the letters. The person who guesses the most words correctly wins a prize.

Predict the Future: Throughout the party, present a magazine picture to each table of kids. These pictures should show something from the past year, such as a winning football game, a new toy, a political event, etc. Each table of kids must make a prediction for the next year, based on the picture. For example: The Yankees will win the pennant, Bill Clinton will become a rock star, the president will be a woman, and so on. Keep providing pictures after each course for the kids' predictions.

Some other fun ideas that will keep the kids busy for hours until the clock strikes midnight are to have them create their own time capsule, strike a piñata, make New Year's resolutions (and guess whose resolutions they are), decorate cookies, and have a huge indoor treasure hunt with clues.

Naming of Candy

For this you need: About 6 different candies that have given names like M&M's, Crunch, Wrigley's , etc. 1 Die (or 2 dice if the crowd is very large) Everyone is seated on the floor in a circle. Packaged candy bars or candy are placed in the middle of the circle. Everyone starts by saying their own names. The leader then makes sure that everyone knows what candy is in the middle. someone begins by rolling the dice. If they roll a 6, they can take one of the candies in the middle. The die continues to go quickly around the circle while people keep picking up candy. When all of the candies are taken, people then can get other people's candy. In order to get their candy, they must state the person's first name and the name of the candy they hold. The person who rolls a 6 and matches the name of the candy and the person takes the other's candy. If they forget either name, they miss their turn and the dice goes to the next person and they continue to roll. (One person can get more than one candy and people can hide the candy behind their back). This is a great way of getting to know people's name and how to get your favorite candies!

Celebrity hunt

Everyone writes the name of a celebrity, famous person or character on a piece of paper which they stick to the forehead of the player on their left (use tape or office Post-It notes). Make sure they don’t see the name. List down the activity(s) or event(s) which has made them famous( but no names). Paste the paper up on the wall so that every guest can see it. This will act as cues and give the participants a direction to make guessing. Now the game starts. Everyone else can see your forehead. The objective is to work out who you are. Going around the table, each payer takes a turn to ask the party questions about who they are - answers can be YES or NO only. If you get a YES you may continue asking, if you get a NO play moves on to the left. Last person to guess their name is the loser. Simple, but very absorbing.

The Grouping Game

This is a good game to play as a mixer. It is a fun, fast moving game. It starts out as everyone collects in one big group. The leader initially calls out a number, usually a number between two and fifteen. The number shouldn't be more than half of the number of total participants. When the number is called out everyone must try to collect in a group that contains that number of people. The group members should be latching arms or have their arms wrapped around each other so that the leader can see who is in the group. If someone cannot enter a group because the number of required members has been reached, he is out of the game. As different numbers are successively called out the number of participants gets smaller and smaller. Eventually, there are less than ten people. The last group, or winning group, should have anywhere from two to five people.

 

Musical Chairs

The old favorite. With one fewer chairs than people, a short snippet of music is played while the people move around the room. All the chairs are placed in the middle of the room or arranged in a corner, all facing back on the wall. When the music stops everyone tries to sit on a vacant chair. (Only one person per chair) The person who doesn't find a chair is 'out'. One chair is taken away and the game continues until only one person (The Winner) is left.

Pass It On

Sit close together in two lines facing the same direction. The person in the front of each line rolls a die. When one of them gets a six, both of them pass a small object (a jack, a ball, a bracelet) to the person behind them who passes it on until it reaches the end. When it gets to the last person, that person must get up and race to the front of the line with the object and sit down. The person who sits down first, gets to sit in the front of the line. The person who was second to sit down, goes back to his or her spot. Whichever line rotates from back to front first, wins.

Winking Murder

All except the detective sit in a circle while the detective waits outside. One person from the circle is elected to be the murderer, and then the Detective is called back to stand in the circle. When he is ready, the Murderer winks at people in the circle. Anyone who sees that they have been winked at lets out a blood-curdling scream and dies. The Detective has three attempts to guess the murderer.

Pass the Orange

Arrange for teams of about 8 to stand in a line, one behind the other (arranged - boy, girl, boy,...). Give each team an orange which the first person should tuck under his chin. This should be passed to the person behind. When the orange gets to the last person, they come to the front of the line and start again. The winning team is the first one which gets their starting person to the front again.