We’ve asked some of the Youth Workers in the SWBA to share some ideas for online youth group activites. There are some great ones here and plenty more on the Baptists Together youth webpage. If you have any others to share, please email them to Carl.
Here are some of the activities/games we’re using to connect with yp using zoom. This assumes an existing level of understanding about using the platform!
- Small groups – easy! Just catch up and share things like ‘good, bad and weird’ stories from the week. It can obviously contain some faith input, but for starters maybe just go social.
- Meet and eat – arrange to connect over lunch! Everyone just brings their food to the screen.
- Zoom Games! For a games night – lots of these are the same games we’d play in person, but just need a bit of extra thought to do on zoom. There is a ‘raise your hand’ feature that allows people to indicate they would like to speak. Using the viewing mode that shows all participants is vital for these to work!
- Bring me a… – participants have to be first to bring an item from their house, e.g. a school shoe, and show it on the screen for a point.
- Pictionary – use the draw feature!
- Mafia/ultimate werewolf – zoom has a private chat feature that allows yp to send messages to the ‘games master’ without anyone else seeing.
- Quizzes – so easy! Just divide them into teams by age/birthday/gender etc. and keep score.
- Would I lie to you? – yp have to share a story and others can quiz them and then have to guess if it’s true or false, scoring points for getting it right.
- Name that tune – someone plays a song and the first person to get it right wins! Alternatively, just play song intros and see who gets most right. The potentially interesting quality of sound only makes it more entertaining!
- ‘Tour of my room’ – one person gives a webcam tour of the room where they are sitting. Then the yp have to answer observational questions prepared in advance.
- Observation quiz – show a brief clip from youtube using ‘display screen’ and ask questions.
- Rock, paper, scissors Arena – yp challenge one another to rock paper scissors matches – whoever wins most challenges is the champion.
- Never have I ever… – everyone holds up 5 fingers. These are their five lives. Everyone takes it in turns to share something they have honestly never done. Those who have must lose a life! Last person/people in win. This can get dodgy, so remind them to ‘keep it clean’.
In the land of OGG… – Tell the participants they have arrived in the mystical land of OGG. In turn, each of them must guess what is in the land of OGG and you, the games master, will tell them if they are right or wrong based on a secret rule they need to figure out. Start by telling them that “In the land of OGG there are trees, but no leaves and sheep but no lambs. In the land of OGG there is Summer, but no Winter and there are puddles, but no rain.” The secret rule is that the only things allowed in the land of OGG are those which have a double letter in the word, such as ‘ee’ or ‘oo’ or ‘mm’.
- Create a pinterest page that has lots of things to do and bible study ideas.
- Create a youtube channel with a weekly update.
Icebreaker games such as,
- Where in the world – point at each other on screen by calling out a persons name.
- Hands up catch up – throw imaginary ball at each other on screen with questions.
- Would you rather – Ask participants to hold up 1 or 2 fingers in response to would you rather questions.
- Scattergories – name some categories and then pic a letter. Then each person has to come up with something in each category starting with that letter. (warning people cheat so have time limit).
- Screen share games
- Kahoot quizzes – You can create quizzes…. Do a quiz about the youth leaders
- Bible story pictionary using whiteboard on Zoom
- Pick fav worship videos for each other to watch
- Alphabet acrostic based on Psalm 145.