Resources

• Age Level: Any
• Number of Participants: any (but keep it reasonable so the game doesn't take forever... a large group can be broken up into smaller groups of 20 or so if necessary)
• Suggested by Mary Pilat, Principal Investigator of CARe (Communities Against Rape Initiative, at Purdue University, from the CARe in-school campaign prepared by Indiana State University faculty).

This game is very similar to the traditional game of “Telephone” that many of us played as children, in which one person thinks up a phrase (“My cat Zelda loves the computer”), and whispers it to the next person, who whispers it to the next, etc. If you have a long enough line of people, by the time the phrase reaches the last person, the phrase has gone through a mutation (“My hat’s elder loves to putter?”)

In this game, everyone stands in a long line or circle, eyes closed. The first person in line picks a word or phrase, or pulls one out of a bag. The word or phrase can describe an emotion (“happy,” “sad,”) or an activity (“building a sandcastle,” “flying a kite”), or even a noun (“flower,” “gumball machine”).

The first person makes a silent image or gesture that describes the word, while the second person watches (everyone else’s eyes are closed). The first person then closes his eyes, so he can't see the rest of the "telephone line." Then the second person taps the third person on the shoulder; she opens her eyes, and the second person silently imitates the original image as much as possible. The image gets passed down the line, until it reaches the final person. The final person then tries to guess what the original word was.

This would be an excellent game to start dialogue about communication and body language, or to introduce the concept of creating images.