I'm planning an event for a mentorship program I am in (we pair underserved kids one on one with college students for a year), and our theme for this event is creative thinking/puzzles/riddles. I was wondering if anyone had any good puzzles, preferably active, and for groups of 10 or so.
One example I can give that will maybe give you a better idea of what I'm aiming for is the human knot. Basically you have a group of 10 people in a circle, and you put your hands in the center, grab two different hands from the opposite side of the circle, and then try and untangle the group without letting go.
The ages of the kids ranges from 7-14, so I'm trying to find puzzles that are age specific (we won't give the same puzzles to the same kids). Any puzzle that's kind of physical, involves the whole group, (or even just two people- the mentor and the kid), and is easy to set up (budget) would be awesome. I've had better luck looking for riddles, but if anyone has a favorite it'd be awesome if you shared them with me. Thanks!
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If you're going for riddles, try putting a few in that have "trick" answers, along the lines of these:
http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=inteltest
But not too many or they will probably get annoyed - plus some of those are fairly well-known.
Edit: I just remembered a really great one similar to yours:
Get two pieces of string, about 1 or 2 metres long, and lasso tie each end. One child puts the two ends of one piece loosely round their wrists, and so does anotehr child - but the two pieces must be crossed, like an X, so they are basically tied together. The aim is to get separated without taking the strings off their wrists. The solution is to loop a part of the other person's string and pull it through the loop on your wrist. It's very difficult to explain (plus I'm not great at explaining!), so if you don't quite understand, I'll try again
And then...I realised that I've kind of forgotten the way to actually escape and solve the puzzle :oops:
But I THINK that it's something like this:
Basically, I know that one of the person's strings has to be looped through the part round someone's wrist - that's the trick that people don't guess...though unfortunately you might have to have a play round to try to figure it out - sorry about that!
Edit: Smasher, I'm intrigued to know the solution now....:P
For paintings in progress, check out canvas and paints
"The power of the weirdness compels me."
eggs
paper
straws
small amounts of tape
a balloon
split everyone into teams and give them one egg and the items listed. Tell them they have to make a cradle for their egg that has to survive being thrown. The team that throws their egg the furthest without it sustaining any damage wins.
The first story involved a mapping project. The students were divided into small groups, and each group was given supplies: a pad of graph paper, a ruler, a protractor, pens and pencils, etc. Then he told the class to draw a map of the floor of the building they were in, and to make it as accurate as possible, labelling everything.
So, they all got to work, arguing about the number of rooms along any given hallway, sketching stuff out... then after about ten minutes, one person put up their hand and said "Um, Mr. Cook... are we allowed to leave the classroom?" "Of course!" he said. "I never said you couldn't." They all streamed out into the hallways and started pacing out distances, recording room numbers, and trying to figure out angles.
The real kicker?
The second story was even simpler. One day, when his students came into class, they found little styrofoam cups upside down on each of their desks. He gave them their instructions: "There's an object hidden under each of those cups. Your task is to figure out what it is."
So, they started moving the cups from side to side, listening to the noise coming from underneath. They smelled around the outside of the cups, a couple of intrepid ones even slid a piece of paper under the cup and lifted the whole thing up to estimate how much the object weighed. And, again, it took a good five or ten minutes before anyone asked "Uh, Mr. Cook... are we allowed to pick up the cups?" (Of course they were).
We did this at my previous job. I was trying to get everyone into a 3-2-1 stand-kneel-prone system and everyone else was just 'no hey, we'll do this gradually and it'll be fine.'
Sigh.
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Yeah, I'd really like to encourage the kids to think creatively and critically. We did this "game" at a summer camp where the kids are blindfolded, and are put in a square rope area. They are told they are in a maze, and that by following the rope they can get out. They are also told that if they need any help at any time, they can raise their hand. It takes most of the kids 5-10 minutes to go around in circles following the rope before they give up and raise their hand. (once they raise their hand, we take them out of the rope area)
Yeah. It sounds so simple, but inevitably people start going down at different speeds, and so multiple people try to correct for the hoop becoming tilted, but nobody knows how anybody else is going to correct for it, and so it starts tilting further and further and increasingly quickly and then it's just a clusterfuck.
Leerage: Willeth's solution seems like it would work pretty well, though I haven't tried it myself. The best one I'm aware of is
Ideally the leader will do a quick demo beforehand of how fast they'll move their finger just to make things even smoother, but it's not really necessary.
You will need a marble or some kind of small ball.
Cardboard tues with the top cut off, lengthwise (as in, not hamburger, but cut it hot-dog style)
Or if you can't get cardboard, ping pong paddles work.
A bucket or large cup or bowl.
Two teams start in a line shoulder to shoulder. They need to move the oil (the marble) from one end of the pipeline (the tubes) to the other and let it fall into a bucket. They cannot touch the marble with their hands, and it cannot hit the ground. If either of these happen, they must start over. The marble must run through each part of the tube or touch every paddle.
Nobody ever figures out that you don't need to stay in a line, and that you can have the marble go through your tube more than once.
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steam - WeAreAllGeth
you'll need a folding ruler or a similar thin strip of wood.
1) this is going to seem rediculously easy, and we all mocked the guy who gave us the exercise, because it seemed rediculously easy....
fold the ruler into a straight strip, and give it to the kids.
the mission: take the ruler at shoulder height, and while all touching it, place it on the ground (if someone lets go, redo from start)
The rules:
- they may only touch the bottom of the ruler, not pinch the edges, or squeeze it between their fingers.
-they must all be touching it with some point of their body at all times
and no matter what they try, as soon as they just place it on their fingers/ palms, and they're ready to begin, the ruler is going to straight up. it's an uncontrollable action when you're holding a light item as a group. its hilarious to see yourself not being able to control the upward motion. it sounds weird, but try it!
edit: i just saw smasher suggested the same thing, but using a hula hoop... also good..
2) put the kids on a line, about 3 feet from eachother.
Choose one of the more expressive kids and set him about 10 ft away from the line. He has to arrange the other kids according to their birthday (or the month/ day in which they were born if the group is mixed).
But none of the kids are allowed to talk.
He has to find out their birthdays using gestures, and has to order the kids to move around using gestures.
i chose a creative funny, gangly 14-year-old to do this, and it was great to see him try to communicate clearly, while absolutely no-one understood... try to come up for a gesture for "august".. heheh...
The last time I did this we wound up with two lines on opposite sides of the room.