Themed Events for Preteens!

I have always been against "theme" nights. I think I wore the wrong costume to one as a child and it has forever scarred me. Having spent some time in our preteen ministry, I must concede that preteens LOVE themed events. Crazy socks, crazy hair, crazy hat, does not matter one bit just so long as they get to dress fun and crazy!

The difficulty with incorporating themed events with preteens is understanding their culture.

Not All Themes are Created Equal! 

So here are some theme ideas I have worked with and the preteens loved it!

Black-Out! All glow-in-the-dark games, and all kinds of fun!

Ninja style games, and everyone dressed in black. Definitely a favorite!

Easily the most successful theme. Boys and girls dressed up a ton.

Fighting evil turkeys. Everyone dressed in camo. Lots of fun.

Medieval theme! Knights and princesses, jesters and kings. Good times!

Each theme has had its own unique set of games to parallel the theme. I think my favorite set of games was probably for ninja night or pirate night, or black-out night, really they were all pretty awesome. I hope some of these ideas get you excited about how you can use them in your ministry!

Be Blessed!

Best List of Preteen Charades and Stunts...Ever!

This is a great list of random jokes, charades, and stunts you can mix into ANY game! Maybe you're having a relay and one of the challenges is to draw from a pile of random envelopes and complete the challenge inside? Maybe you're having a Charades/Joke-off. Either way this list is packed full of ideas to get you started toward hilarious good times!

Enjoy!

An old person with no teeth running a race

A rabbit

A dinosaur

A ninja

Re enact the entire lion king movie

Why are ghosts bad liars.? Because you can see right through them

What dog can jump higher than a building? Any dog, buildings can't jump

What's black and white and makes a lot of noise? A zebra with a drum kit

How do you make fruit punch? Give it boxing lessons

Why did the sheep go to the movies? To get some snaaaahcks

What has for legs but can't walk? A chair

Pretend that your arm just fell off

A snail

Crazy cow

Why was Rita carrying a ladder? Because she was going to high school

Do a slow motion run

Get a volunteer with a matching color shirt as you and challenge them to a staring contest. Loser laughs first

10 push-ups in 10 seconds

What animal needs to wear a wig? A bald eagle

Why did the Oreo go to the dentist? Because he lost his filling

What has 4 wheels and flies? A garbage truck

Spin in a circle 5 times then do 5 jumping jacks

Act like a vacuum cleaner

Pretend you are person closing your eyes and walk around

Stand still and rub your belly

Don't stop barking

Act like a hungry monkey

When do ducks wake up? At the quack of dawn

What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear

Act like a muffin

Pretend you are a slice of bacon

Be a tree

Act like a dj

Walk forwards while walking backwards

Pretend to be a little baby imagining itself as a grown adult playing in the World Cup finals against evil monsters 

trying to take over the world.

Name all the numbers from 1 - 100, which have the letter 'A' in their spellings?

Pretend to play fetch with your imaginary pet elephant. Throw him a ball 3 times!

Pretend that are terrified of people smiling. If anyone smiles at you start screaming and say “AHH NOT AGAINNN”

Get a friend and try to high-five eachother with your eyes closed

Act like a ninja and be reallyyyy sneaky!

Tell your leader to crawl on the floor and act like a horse

Have a contest with your entire team to see who can hold their breath the longest

Sit down and pretend you’re meditating for 10 seconds, saying “OHHHMMMM”

Yell “no you smell like moldy cheese!” then dance around your leader like a hungry monkey

Tell your leader to laugh like a hyena three times

Your entire team must hold hands and do the wave

Fly around like an airplane and don’t stop until your entire team does it too!!

Quick! Everyone make a Soul Train!!

Your entire team must leap through the air while yelling “I’m a beautiful Ballerinaaaa!!”

Ask the shortest person on your team if they’d like to eat some of your toe jam

Play “peek-A-Boo” with a door

Try to make a Lower case “e” with your fingers

Act like you’re an angry gorilla escaping from the zoo!!

Make your best “FART” sound!

Pretend like youre super mad at your leader and tell them to get outta your house!!!

QUICK!! Play Marco Polo!

More Preteen Game Night Ideas!

Post card I mailed to our preteens to remind them to RSVP! 

Lately I have noticed that the preteens in our ministry love having a specific theme night that gives them a reason to dress up in a fun costume or clothes. 

This year I started with a medieval theme. Dress up as knights, princesses, princes and jesters!


We had a ton of fun and the 4 games I planned turned out to be enough to last us more than 3 hours of playing time.

It was important to me to break down any possible stereotypes, that girls have to be princesses, boys have to be princes. It was hilarious to see some of our preteen boys try to act cool and be princesses. And some of our girls wanted to be knights!

All of the games we played involved the 4 different characters. Regardless of what someone dressed up as, they could choose to be either of the characters. However they must remain that character throughout the night.

And yes, that is a functioning drawbridge

Here are the games we played, the supply list will be at the bottom of this post as well.

Knight Rescue: 

(This time the princesses must rescue the knights!)

• Any preteen choosing to be a knight must be blindfolded and can only crawl
• Any preteen choosing to be a princess must rescue the blindfolded, knight from point A and bring the knight to point B. The knight MUST crawl the entire time. (We used a long hallway)
• Anyone having not elected to be a princess or knight must spread out along the hallway and sit on their butt. They cannot get up from their seated position. 
• Whenever the princesses and knights pass by the people sitting down try to tag them. If tagged the princess must spin 3 times while saying "I'm a pretty bunny" 
• Designate 3 challenges the princesses must complete before rescuing the knights. 
• We used 2 "mystery boxes." Concealed within a box was a bucket of watery cottage cheese, another a bucket of 4lbs of chopped hotdogs. In order to succeed each princess must find the "key" inside the bucket (a plastic spoon). 

Jester Got Jokes: 

• Essentially this game is a stand-up comedy show mixed with charades and stunts
• Fill a bucket with slips of paper with (appropriate) typed jokes, or stunts, or charades 
• Teams get a point for correctly guessing the charade
• Participating team automatically wins point for successful completion of stunts 
• Participating team wins extra point if any preteen designated "jester" tells joke
• Team must fake laugh as hard as possible whenever jokes are told
• List of Jokes, charades and stunts can be found in the "supplies" section below  

A Royal Joust:

• Using a rolly cart with an attached rope
• Wear funny bucket masks 
• Use noodle to hit target on top of bucket for 1 pt 
• Use noodle to hit helmet for 2 pts
• Use noodle to knock opponent off car for 3pts 
• 2 heats, first person to 3pts wins

We also did fun relay races using these carts attached to rope. Watch out for rope burns from kids holding the rope incorrectly though. 

Protect the Castle:

• Set up 3 cones on top of cardboard box
• Knights must protect 3 cones by tagging any player trying to steal cones 
• Everyone not a knight may only walk backwards while trying to steal one cone at a time
• Knight with at least one cone left wins! 

Supplies:

• Cottage Cheese 
• Chopped hot dogs 
• Blindfolds 
• 4 cardboard boxes 
• Rolling carts with attached rope 
• Crazy bucket helmets 
• Foam Noodles 
• Supplies to design Kingdom Crest (we cut cardboard into shield-shapes) 
• An old person with no teeth running a race
  A rabbit
  A dinosaur
  A ninja
  Re enact the entire lion king movie
  Why are ghosts bad liars.? Because you can see right through them
  What dog can jump higher than a building? Any dog, buildings can't jump
  What's black and white and makes a lot of noise? A zebra with a drum kit
  How do you make fruit punch? Give it boxing lessons
  Why did the sheep go to the movies? To get some snaaaahcks
  What has for legs but can't walk? A chair
  Pretend that your arm just fell off
  A snail
  Crazy cow
  Why was Rita carrying a ladder? Because she was going to high school
  Do a slow motion run
  Get a volunteer with a matching color shirt as you and challenge them to a staring contest. Loser laughs first
  10 push-ups in 10 seconds
  What animal needs to wear a wig? A bald eagle
  Why did the Oreo go to the dentist? Because he lost his filling
  What has 4 wheels and flies? A garbage truck
  Spin in a circle 5 times then do 5 jumping jacks
  Act like a vacuum cleaner
  Pretend you are person closing your eyes and walk around
  Stand still and rub your belly
  Don't stop barking
  Act like a hungry monkey
  When do ducks wake up? At the quack of dawn
  What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear
  Act like a muffin
  Pretend you are a slice of bacon
  Be a tree
  Act like a dj
  Walk forwards while walking backwards
  Pretend to be a little baby imagining itself as a grown adult playing in the World Cup finals against evil monsters trying to take over the world.