Fun Get to Know You Game (or Pumpkin Pile-up)

At our church, I help lead bimonthly activities for a group of 8 to 11 year old girls, called Activity Days.  This past week, we did a fun get to  know you activity since many of the girls hadn't met each other before.

In this game, the girls found out about each other and laughed, a lot.  I called it Pumpkin Pile-up because I put the all the slips of paper in a plastic halloween pumpkin, and because the girls end up sitting on each other.  

To play this game, you need one chair for each player and a list of "if" statements.  Here are some things from my list:

if you like to listen to Christmas music in September

if your favorite color is blue

if you have a pet

if you’ve ever visited another country

if you like cake more than ice cream

if you play a sport

if horses are your favorite animal

if you play the piano

if recess is your favorite subject in school

if you love to cook

if you are the oldest in your family

if you’ve lived in another state

if you get scared easily

if you are grumpy when you don’t get enough sleep

if you complain when it’s time to take a shower

if you like to buy things at yard sales

if you are afraid of spiders

if you sleep with a stuffed animal or blankie

if you have a nickname

if you have super powers

if you’d rather have a pet monkey than a pet dog

if you’ve been on a roller coaster

if you’d rather go swimming than bike riding

if pizza is your favorite food

I added more as I thought of them.  The game goes quickly, and most girls wanted to keep playing even after we had run out of questions.  

Everyone starts in a chair.  The leader picks up a slip of paper and says "move over one seat" and then reads the paper.  So you get "Move over one seat if pizza is your favorite food".  If it applies to you, you move over one seat.  But, if someone is already sitting in that seat and isn't moving, you just sit on their lap.  You end up getting several girls sitting on each other.  If someone on the bottom needs to move over one seat at some point, you just get up and let them move, and then sit back down on your seat again.

We'd ask the girls to elaborate on some of the things, like telling us their nicknames as they moved over, or telling us what things make them scared.  Girls who weren't moving also liked to chime in with their favorite food or favorite color, so there was a lot of talking among the girls, and I think everyone left feeling happy and feeling like they had made some new friends.