Boys' Adventure Club: Campfire Games (More Fun Than a Barrel Full of Monkeys)

I bet there are people reading this blog right now who have played circle games.  But for those of you who haven't, let me clue you in about what you could be enjoying if you were members of the Boys' Adventure Club, which meets monthly at my library.  This month (Monday, Feb. 28, 2011, from 4-5 p.m., for those keeping score), the BAC, which includes boy people from grades K-6, will be learning campfire games.

First, I need to be clear about the whole campfire thing.  Although they're called campfire games, there will not be any actual fire involved.  This saddens moi, of course, because, as anyone knows, felines love to stretch out before a roaring fire to bask in the wonderful warmness, smell the wood smoke, and basically become all toasty.  But there are fun games aplenty, and the boys in company BAC certainly know funness (not a word, but oughtta be) when they experience it.

(I stand corrected--funness is listed in the online urban dictionary, but it is sarcastic, so we'll just leave it there until it learns how to be nice.)

Broadway Gal, who runs the Youth Services show at my library, gave me the inside scoop about the campfire games:

• Hula Hoop Pass:  This five-minute game requires amazing coordination!  Kids get in a circle, and they have to pass themselves through a hula hoop without breaking the hand-chain.  Like so:

• Concentration:  Keep the rhythm, everybody!  Let's play!  (Scowl-Face is already out . . .)  Improv Encyclopedia calls this an improvisation game.  Here's the how-to of one version.

• Hand Game:  Hands put on the ground.  Not as easy as it sounds.  Watch the video below, and you'll understand why.

• My Name is ... and I Like to Dance:  My name is Cauli, and I like to dance the stray cat strut (apologies to Brian Setzer and The Stray Cats).  It works like this:

•  Indian Chief:  (Okay, Native American Chief, for you politically-correct types out there.)

• People to People:  This would be more fun with felines.  Well, at least for moi.

• Lap Circle:  This one, I wish we had a video to explain.  Kids get in a circle and move together until the circle becomes so small that people are sitting in each others' laps.

• Stand Together:  Nope.  Can't be done.  Must be an optical illusion.

(Thanks to the Ultimate Camp Resource for many fine YouTube videos embedded in today's blog.)

• 1-2-3, Look!  Broadway Gal says this is a quiet version of Scream Machine.  Everyone closes his/her eyes (at BAC, it's all "his's" 'cause they're guys) and lowers his/her head, and the leader calls out 1-2-3-Look!  (But, of course, they can't see anything, because their eyes are closed!  D'oh!  Oh, wait, there's more.)  At the call to look, each person looks up at one specific person.  If the person you're looking at is also looking at you, then you're both out.  No fair changing who you're looking at.  If the person you're looking at is looking elsewhere (elsewho?), then you get to stay in the game, and the cycle repeats until only two players are left.  The winners get to feed me my supper  (extra portions, woo-hoo!) (okay, I made that last part up).

Each of these games, Broadway Gal explained, improves the participants' physical coordination, directional skills, spacial awareness, and mental alertness.  But, more than anything, they are just flat-out fun to play.

This month's BAC session is filled, I think (15 participants), so you'll need to sign-up for their next event on March 21, 2011, which is Building With Popsicle Sticks.  Guess who gets to eat all the popsicles first?

The green pops are so tasty!

(Not moi, but an incredible simulation!)

A Truly Original Stray Cat,

Cauli Le Chat
MPL Roving Reporter
Fun-and-Games News Beat

P.S.  For those who got (or not) my jocular reference to the Stray Cat Strut, here's a  music video, but not with the band (sorry, Brian Setzer fans).

More Cool Than You'll Ever Be

 P.P.S.  Can't let The Monkees reference in this blog's title go without at least an attempt at humor.  Next to The Beatles, The Monkees were Scowl-Face's most favoritist rock-and-roll band.  (That explains a lot.)  Watch one of their videos and see if you don't feel likewise.  (Michael Nesmith, by the way, invented MTV.  You can look it up.)

Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith are actually playing their instruments (electric piano and electric guitar, respectively) in this video.  (Peter could play a dozen instruments, and both he and Mike were accomplished musicians/composers.)  Micky Dolenz is making a fairly lame show of drumming--he was, after all, a relatively famous child actor before the Monkees gig--and Davy Jones is goofing around with the bass.  Davy was another actor/singer--he played to rave reviews as the Artful Dodger in the London and Broadway productions of Oliver!, appeared in a few American TV sitcoms, and, in his youth, trained to be a jockey (yes, riding horseys at races).

Scowl-Face could (and would) go on forever about this, but I've heard enough.  Time for supper.  Go to bed, old man!