Age Characteristics activity/ Youth to Sea game idea

1. 1. The name of the game is “Octopi” modeled after the game camouflage 
2. 2.    This game takes around 15 to 20 minutes to play and is targeted for age groups 9-12
3. .    You need no materials to play this game, however, you may need a hula hoop due to COVID 19 policies 
4. 4.    Rules of the game:
5. ·     One kid is selected to be “it” and stand in the hula hoop, they then close their eyes and count to 20 while all the other players (the octopi) go and hide in the perimeters of the playing area. 
6. ·     Once the person who is “it” reaches 20 they open their eyes and try to spot the other players  
7. ·     The person who is “it” however, can ask questions to try to find out the locations of the octopi, for example, “how many fingers (or tentacles?) am I holding up?”, or “Make an animal noise” 
8. ·     Every once and a while the person who is “it” can say “food for 20” and the octopi must run and touch the hula hoop and change their hiding spot in 20 seconds, “food for 15” would be 15 seconds and so on. As the game progresses the time gets shorter and more skill is required 
9. ·     The last person to be spotted wins, and the first person spotted becomes “it”
10. 5.    This relates to the pacific octopus and its amazing camouflaging abilities 

-Jackie

O C T O P U S 

• targeted towards ages 9-11
  
• materials include: string/tape - anything to mark a safe zone

1. One child is chosen to be the "octopus". Their goal is to tag as many players as possible. 
2. The other players line up at one end of the "ocean" (behind a marked line). They are the "fish".
3. The octopus stands in the middle of the ocean and calls out 'octopus'. The fish try to run across the ocean as the octopus tries to tag them. The fish cannot be tagged after they have crossed to the other side of the ocean.
4.  If tagged, the fish become "seaweed". The seaweed try to tag the fish running by while keeping one foot planted. 
5. If tagged by seaweed, the fish turn into "sea urchins". The sea urchins try to tag the remaining fish while sitting down. 
6. Once the rest of the fish reach the other side, the octopus calls out "octopus" again. The game continues until all the fish become seaweed/sea urchins. 

Age Characteristics Game

Froggy Murderer

• ages 9-11
• materials: none!

1. sit in a circle (socially distanced)
2. pick one person to be the detective, have the detective step out of the group
3. discuss as a group and appoint one person to be the "froggy murderer"
4. have the detective rejoin the group and step into the middle of the circle
5. once the detective has returned, everyone should start looking at eachother, the froggy murderer will stick their tongue out at a random person and that person must wait 10 seconds then dramtically die
6. the detective has 3 tries to guess who the murderer is, if they guess right the detective wins, if they use up all their guesses incorrectly or the froggy murderer kills everyone before the froggy murderer wins

25 steps

• any age, but targeted at 5-8
• materials: paper, writing utensil

1. have campers spread out among different places in an open area (ex. forest or beach)
2. have them take 25 steps in any direction, staying 2 metres away from others, and then have them draw something that catches their eye (ex. a flower or a sea star)
3. repeat 5-10 times then regroup and share your drawings

This activity is a great way for the campers to explore the outdoors and be introduced to the many animals and other living things in our backyards!

Targeted towards age 9 to 13-year-olds 

The name of the game is the guessing game. (modelled after the game charades )  The theme is to act out different marine animals.

1. One person gets a piece of paper then they read it to themselves or if they need help there will be a staff member.
2. Then the person has to act it out.
3. The person who can guess first and get it right wins.
4. There is also teamwork so there are 5 people in each group.
5. The groups will keep a record of their points and the team with the most points wins.

-Craig McDonald 

Otters, Urchins, and plankton

Ages: 5-8 

Materials: Hoops, boundary markers 

1. Set boundaries with markers 
2. Have a few children be the otter, more children be urchins, and the biggest group is plankton 
3. Plankton will have green shirt tied to them and urchins will have brown string tied to them 
4. The otters can only tag the urchins and the urchins can only tag the plankton 
5. Otters can walk fast but sea urchins can only walk slowly
6. While tagging other children, the urchins and plankton have to run from their predators 
7. When a child is tagged, they become what they were tagged from, so an urchin would become an otter if they were tagged by the otter
8. Game ends when there are only otters left

Point of the game is to show the campers the food chain and the relations between predator and prey. 

The original version of the game was called "SPUD", but I changed it a bit to make it to be related to marine stuff.

Age group: 5-8

Materials needed: light and soft, easy-to-throw ball, a bunch of drawings of marine organisms and a hat with a drawing of a shark.

1. Each child will be given a random drawing of a marine organism and they mustn't tell others what it is;
2. one child can volunteer to be the first "shark" who will get to wear the hat;
3. after other children count to ten, the "shark" will go and try to tag any one of them;
4. If anyone gets tagged, everyone would stop running and yell in unison "Who are you";
5. the child who got tagged would try to act the animal which was on the drawing that he or she was handed with while other children would try to guess.
6. The first one who guessed it right would be the winner of the round and a new animal would be assigned to the child who did the acting;
7. the "shark" hat will then be given to the winner and he or she will then be the "shark".

Ocean museum

• Age group: 5-8 year olds but can be complicated or simplified for other age groups
• Materials needed: None

How to play:

One person will be chosen to be "it" and call out ocean wildlife names. Music can be put on and the kids will move around until the person who is "it" calls out an ocean animal name. All the participants have 3 seconds to pretend to be that animal. (This can also be done where they have to create the shape of that animal with a few people). The person who is it then goes around and inspects the museum animals. If they notice anyone moving, those people are eliminated from that round.

This activity will help kids learn more types of ocean marine life in a fun and creative way.

[Can be played spaced out with COVID restrictions!]

Youth to Sea Game Idea:

Pictionary: Aquatic Edition

Materials Needed: Large Paper, Markers, and a Drawing Board.

Age Group: 5-11

Depending on the age of the kids, or the difficulty they want to play on kids either have to draw an animal related to the ocean or other body of water. Or try to draw a phrase such as High Tide, Other Fish in the Sea, Under the Sea. For easier difficulty the words would be like dog shark, where they might draw a dog and a shark.

Steps: 

1. Ask kids what difficulty they would like to play on, Normal, or Hard. Normal being sea creatures and hard being phrases.
2. Get the kids to right down phrases related to the sea or aquatic animals and put the suggestions into a hat(or other way of distributing the words). The workers can also add some suggestions if the kids cannot think of any.
3. One person is given or takes a phrase to draw, You cannot spell out or tell the others what the words are.
4. After about 15 seconds kids can start guessing(the time can be lengthened or shortened depending on what the drawer feels comfortable with)
5. The person who guesses what the phrase or animal is gets to either draw or give someone else the chance to draw.

Game Name: Shark and Tuna Fish

Age Group: 5-8 year olds

Materials Needed: None

How To Play:

1 kid is selected to be the shark while the other is selected to be the tuna fish.  The 'shark kid' will be tasked with tagging the 'tuna fish kid' while the 'tuna fish kid' is tasked with avoiding the shark. The rest of the kids are selected to be seaweed and put in groups of two with their stomachs lying on the ground. To avoid the 'shark kid' the 'tuna fish kid' may 'run into the seaweed' by lying down with a group of two. The kid on the other end of the group then becomes the fish and has to avoid being tagged by the shark. The loop continues on until instructions are given for the game to end.

Ocean Fact: Within the ocean are food chains. A food chain is where a plant or small animal is the food for a larger animal. This large animal is then food for an even larger animal. These are natural systems that are in place to keep the population of each species under control. If a plant or animal is removed the animal that eats it won't have food. Then the larger animal that eats this animal won't have food either and so on. This is important to know so we know not to kill too many of certain animals so we'll still have populations of larger animals around.

Age Characteristics Activity:

Walrus

For ages 5-8, although any age can play it

Materials: None

The game involves the group masking a particular thing or action with a keyword, ie. "walrus"

1. One person is chosen as "It", and goes out of the room while the group decides on a word/action ex. "swimming", and a keyword, ex. "walrus"
2. The "it" then comes back into the room and questions each player about the word/action to try to figure out what it is.
3. The players answer as they normally would, but replacing the word with the keyword:

ex. "Where do you do this activity?", "I like to walrus at the beach in the summer"

4. The "it" can ask as many questions as he/she wants, and three guesses at what the word/action is. 

To incorporate marine biology into the game, just choose an animal as the word that the "it" is trying to guess and teach the kids interesting facts about the animal. 

Age Characteristics activity/ Youth to Sea game idea

The game is called "Stealthy Sloth". It is made to get kids from one room to another.
Made for kids 6 and younger. 
When kids are needed to move to a different area I would say "Stealthy Sloth". Then the kids would line up single file and move quietly down the hallway or wherever all the way to their destination.
The point of this game is to get the kids to be quiet but also keep their minds busy with trying to be as quiet as a sloth.

Catch the Dolphin

• Age Group: Grades 4-6

• Materials: One dolphin plushie

• How to Play: First, the group brainstorms as many marine mammals as possible. Each person says one new example. Each example becomes their character. If someone did not say a marine mammal, they are given one that has not been chosen. Next, everyone stands in a circle with one person in the middle, holding the stuffed dolphin. That person must yell out a marine mammal (not their own) and throw the dolphin into the air, making room for the net person to catch it. The person whose animal has been called must try to catch the stuffed dolphin before it hits the ground. If they do, they yell out another marine mammal and throw the dolphin into the air, again, making room for the next person to catch it. If they do not catch the dolphin in time, everyone else must run away as fast as they can. The person must pick up the dolphin and say "freeze" so that everyone stops running and is stuck in place. They also cannot move from the spot in the middle. The person must now throw the dolphin at someone else's feet and if it touches their feet, that person must do 10 jumping jacks (or another exercise). If it doesn't hit their feet, the person who threw it must do the exercise. The game continues with the person who did the exercise throwing the dolphin up again and calling out another animal. The game can end whenever the leaders choose. When it is over, we all come together and talk about what these marine mammals have in common, what makes them different, and what classifies an animal as a marine mammal.
• Ocean Fact: It teaches the children about the characteristics of marine mammals and what they all have in common or how they are different.

Name of the game: jellyfish tag

Age group: 9-11 year olds

Materials: none

How to play: jellyfish tag is a tag game, as the name suggests. It follows the life cycle of jellyfish, using Rock Paper Scissors to move through the stages. The first stage is egg/planula larva, and for that stage you squat on the ground with your arms tucked in. Next is polyp, where you are still squatting on the ground, but have your arms straight up. After polyp is strobila, so for that stage you are standing up with your arms straight up. Then comes ephyra, where you bend down with your arms out, and after that is adult jellyfish, where you stand up and bob your arms. Everyone starts out as a egg/planula larva, and basically play Rock Paper Scissor tag with other players. Whoever wins the Rock Paper Scissors moves on to the next stage of the life cycle. You can only tag people who are in the same stage as you. The game can keep going as long as needed because when they reach adult jellyfish, they can just go back to being an egg, and count each time they make it through the life cycle. This would work best in a bigger group. 

Ocean fact that it realties to: life cycle of the jellyfish

Evolution

• targeted for 4-8 years old
• no materials needed
• modified rock/paper/scissors

Rules

- set a boundary for campers to stay within

- there will be 3 or more stages of evolution, which the campers will characterize by doing a certain pose or behavior (ex egg- curled up/squating in an egg shape, frog-hopping like a frog, tadpole- swimming like a tadpole)

-all campers will start as an "egg", they will proceed to have a rock/paper/scissors match with another camper

-the winner of the match will "evolve" into the next growth stage of the species (for example egg > tadpole > frog)

-the loser of the match will reverse "evolve" and go back to the previous stage (for example frog > tadpole > egg)

-leaders can have fun choosing certain poses, behaviors and animals to characterize

-based on the age category, volunteers or instructors can add or remove growth stages to create more difficulty to be on the upmost tier.

- from this activity, leaders can educate campers about the life stages of a certain species of marine life and how they change throughout their lifetime. (The process in which a tadpole evolves into a frog is called Metamorphosis. A female frog will lay eggs in a safe area away from predators, in a couple of days the eggs will develop into tadpoles and are able to move underwater. In about 24 hours, the tadpoles will develop legs, organs and frog-like features, finally evolving into a frog.)

-Shaunee