Charades

Charades is a very popular and entertaining guessing game. All you need is a lively imagination and a few acting skills and you'll have everyone in great fits of laughter.

Age: Adults and older children

No. of players: At least enough players for two teams

Equipment: None, although a box of costumes may come in handy

Time: 20+ minutes

Aim: To guess a word that has several syllables that is acted out by the other team.

1. Preparation: (Optional) Prepare a box of costumes and other props which will add great amusement to the game.

2. Divide players into two teams. One team become the actors and the other team has to guess the word that is being mimed.

3. The acting team leaves the room and decides on the word it would like to act out. In general, the word should be made of three syllables, however, two and four (or more) syllable words can also be used. The team will mime the word in different scenes which will represent each syllable. Then in the final scene they will act out the whole word. There is one scene for each syllable. See an example below. The actors can use any props that they would like.

4. When the actors return to the room, one of the team will announce to the audience the number of scenes that will be mimed. In between scenes, the actors leave the room to allow the other players to discuss what they think the scene represents.

5. After the final scene the watching team has a limited time to guess the word.

6. The teams then swap over for as many rounds of Charades as they want to play.

Example: The word "Courageous" can be broken into 3 syllables. The first syllable could be represented by a "car" which could be a scene with people driving a car; the second syllable could be represented by a "rage" which could be a scene with an actor going into a rage; the third syllable could be represented by "juice" which could be a scene where the actors squeeze juice and drink it. The final scene is "courageous" where a scene is acted out showing a courageous act.

Variations:

Categories: Teams choose words that belong to a specifically chosen category and the full word is not mimed. For example; flowers ('day-seas', 'butter-cup'); or animals ('lie-on', 'hip-o-pot-a-mouse')

Proverbs: Teams choose a well-known proverb or saying which they act out word by word or in groups of several words.

Easter Charades: Teams choose words associated with the Easter story: resurrection; criminals; Passover; holiday

Christmas Charades: Teams choose words associated with Christmas: angels; stable; manger; star

Thanksgiving Charades: Teams choose words associated with Thanksgiving: feast; reunion; turkey; holiday

Similar games you may like to try: Dumb Crambo, The Game

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