Charades is a game that both children and adults love to play. If you are running short of ideas for charade, here are some ideas for making this game exciting.
Charades is a fun word-guessing game which is well-liked by most people. People who wish to play this game must be grouped under two teams and each team must have at least three people. The team members would then have to come up with phrases, that could be the name of a song, movie, television sitcom or book. These phrases must then be written on scraps of paper. Each team would be provided with a bowl. Each of these scraps of paper need to be folded. These must then be placed in that bowl.
Each team member will get a chance to act out the phrase written on the scrap of paper that he/she picks up from the other team’s bowl. Your team would be on a winning streak, if your team members are good at acting out words or phrases and guessing them. This is definitely an exciting game that gets people involved, so make sure that you never run out of ideas for charade. Given below are instructions on how to play this interesting game along with some very interesting topics.
How to Play
Before you start playing the game, ensure that the participants know how to play this game. First of all, consult your team members while selecting the titles. The chosen phrase should be known to every member of your team. Since acting out and guessing long titles would be difficult, you must not use phrases that consist of more than seven words. The excitement level goes up only when the team members get closer to guessing the title.
So, come up with a list of interesting movies, books or songs, that are not too hard to guess. You could even act out popular characters from movies, television sitcoms or animations. The difficulty level should not be very high, otherwise the game will lose its charm. It all boils down to how expressive your face is and how good you are at making hand gestures. However, one needs to ensure that the person acting out the word doesn’t indulge in lip syncing.
In case you have not played this game before, here are some tips that will help you understand the game better.
- If you need to act out a book title, put both your hands together and unfold them as if you are reading a book.
- Make a rectangle as if outlining a TV screen before acting out a television show title.
- Pretend to sing in case you have to enact a song title.
- If it is a movie title, make an O with one hand and pretend to crank an old-fashioned movie camera.
- Use hand gestures to tell the number of words in the title
- Use hand gestures to stress on which word you want them to guess.
- For instance, hold up two fingers and point on the second finger if you want them to guess the second word.
- For indicating past tense, move your hands over your shoulder towards the back.
- Use gestures to encourage the players, especially when they are close to guessing the word correctly.
Charade Topics for Kids
When making a list of charades topics for kids, make sure that the words are easy to enact and guess. Kids love pictures, so you could cut pictures of animals or popular cartoon characters and paste them on cards. Let the children mime cartoon characters or characters from a fairytale or popular books that they would have read. Acting out characters from popular cartoons or television series is certainly a great idea for kids. The game word list for very young kids can also include nursery rhymes.
Once the kids guess correctly, you could play some victory music to excite them even more. Giving prizes would be a great way to get the kids more involved in the game, so don’t forget the chocolates and candies! Believe me, this is one of the best group games for kids where your child can not only learn to work on his/her hand and body coordination, but may also understand how to work in a team! Given below is a list of the name of books that a majority of children would have read along with some of the popular animated movies.
Books
- Little House in the Big Woods
- Where the Wild Things Are
- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- The Runaway Bunny
- The Cat in the Hat
- Goodnight Moon
- The Jungle Book
- The Diary of a Young Girl
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Movies
- Beauty and the Beast
- Home Alone
- The Karate Kid
- Wizard of Oz
- The Lion King
- Shrek
- The Princess and the Frog
- The Little Rascals
- Toy Story
- Kung Fu Panda
- How to Train Your Dragon
- Happy Feet
- Wall-E
- Mary Poppins
- The Sound of Music
- Back to the Future
- Alice in Wonderland
- Finding Nemo
Charade Topics for Adults
Adults can be more innovative and can come up with different themes. The themes could be decided as per the occasion. For instance, Christmas song titles would be just apt for celebrating Christmas. You could also act out funny movie titles. You could even pick a particular actor and act out his/her movie titles. All the movie buffs would surely be excited to show how good they are at guessing the movie title. If you are a book lover, you could make a list of award-winning books or classics. Given below is a list of the names of books and movies that you can use anytime you plan to play this game.
Books
- Animal Farm
- Midnight’s Children
- Pride and Prejudice
- God of Small Things
- The Kite Runner
- Great Expectations
- The Sun Also Rises
- Catch-22
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
- A Room with a View
- Little Women
- Wuthering Heights
- The Grapes of Wrath
Television Sitcoms
- How I Met Your Mother
- The Big Bang Theory
- That 70’s Show
- King of Queens
- Two and a Half Men
- Full House
- Small Wonder
- Modern Family
- Just Shoot Me
- Rules of Engagement
- Mr. Sunshine
- F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
- Different Strokes
- I Love Lucy
- Bewitched
- Desperate Housewives
- Pushing Daisies
- Scrubs
- Bones
- True Blood
- Criminal Minds
- The Walking Dead
- Dexter
- Mad Men
- The Simpsons
Movies
- The Man with One Red Shoe
- Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
- Lord of the Rings
- Catch Me if You Can
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Up in the Air
- Gone with the Wind
- The King’s Speech
- Some Like it Hot
- The Dark Knight
- Blood Diamond
- My Best Friend’s Wedding
- She’s the Man
- Father of the Bride
- Dumb and Dumber
- Angels and Demons
- A Lot Like Love
- The Last House on the Left
- The Ugly Truth
- Robin Hood: Men In Tights
- To Be or Not to Be
- The Nutty Professor
- Death at a Funeral
- It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
If you are planning to host a party anytime soon, start making a list of movies, songs and books right away. This game will surely set the ball rolling and will create the right ambiance for your party. To make the game more exciting, keep a time limit for guessing the phrase. So, use the aforementioned ideas for playing charades and say adieu to boredom!
