Association for Promotion of Creative Learning www.creativelearning.

in

How to Start a Game ?

Creative Learning requires development of activities in the form
o f g a m e s . In order to organise these activities, we should adopt the prevalent
methods of collecting players, choosing leaders, making pairs or teams, etc. W e
shall first discuss the general principles involved in these activities.

Collecting Players
Before starting a game, the first task is to collect players. Two or three children decide as to which game is
to be played. Then they join hands and go on chanting in loud voice by shaking joined hands up and down.

We want to play Queenie, Queenie.

We want to play Queenie, Queenie
Who wants to play Queenie, Queenie.
Who wants to play Queenie, Queenie.
Or
Come and join, come and join.
Join the ring, join the ring.

(Replace Queenie, Queenie by the name of the game played).

How to Start a Game

On hearing the chanting the children interested in playing “Queenie, Queenie” join hands and start chanting.
This way the voice becomes louder and louder. The process continues till the required number of children
have given consent to play the game.

Team Formation
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Generally teams are formed in various games. It can be done in the following ways.

• Let children stand in a row in ascending or descending order of heights. The game organizer
(Teacher or one of the players) asks each child to call out 1 and 2 one by one. The person calling 2
is then asked to take a step forward. In this way two groups are automatically formed. They can be
given any name as per the choice of the group.

• The children divide themselves into pairs, go out of the sight and keep secret names. They can
keep names after fruits, vegetables, towns, villages, etc. Only one pair stays back. It is called the

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 Association for Promotion of Creative Learning www.creativelearning.in

leading pair. Now after keeping their secret names they come to the leading pair joining their hands
and chant.

We have grapes and oranges.

What do you want?
What do you want?

Then one member of the leading pair in turn gives his/her choice. If he/she chooses grapes, then the person
having his/her secret name ‘grapes’ goes in his/her team and other person ‘orange’ goes in other team.
Similarly if the pair has kept their name after the names of cities they will come and call out.

We have come from Ranchi & Lucknow.

Whom do you want?
Whom do you want?

The members of leading pair exercise their options alternatively and the team is formed. If in the end one
person remains unpaired because he/she could not form pair with anyone, he/she goes to a distance and
raises his/her hands with one hand ‘open’ and the other ‘ clenched fisted’. The child always has his/her
back towards the leading pair. Now one of the members of the leading pair secretly chooses either ‘open’ or
‘clenched fist’ and calls out loudly ‘drop’. The child raising his/her hands then drops one of the hands. If the
dropped hand has clenched fist, then the member of the leading pair exercising his/her option as ‘clenched
fist’ gets the child in his/her team.

Choosing a Leader/Queenie/Searcher/Chaser
Often in many games one child has to perform different tasks from that of the others. He/she may be called
Leader/Queenie/Searcher/Chaser etc. Depending upon the nature of the game children should choose them
in an interesting way. Some of the ways choosing them are illustrated below.

Choose a colour
One player goes out of hearing. The rest pick colours for themselves. One colour is allotted to the player
who goes away. When the child comes back, he is asked to choose one of the colours by chanting in chorus.

Colour, Colour, Which colour do you want?

The child names a colour. The player picking out that colour becomes the Leader/Queenie/Searcher/Chaser.
This method can be suitably adapted by names of great men, vegetables, fruits, fishes, cities etc. Then
replace the word ‘colour’ by men/vegetables/fruits/fishes/cities in the chant.

Odd man out

Children should stand in a circle facing inwards with their hands behind their back and chant.

All in the middle and odd man’s out

or
Ding dang dong
How to Start a Game

Or
Zing zag zag

On the word out/dong/zag they should whip their hands from behind holding them in front of all to see with
their right palms either up or down on their left hand. They then look around to see if one player is ‘odd’ that
is to say one player holding his/her palm one way and the rest of the players holding differently. Then the
odd player becomes the Leader/Queenie/Searcher/Chaser.

If no one is found to be ‘odd’ the players do the exercise again. If there are more players then the likelihood
▪ Creative Learning Games

of one player being odd is increased by introducing finger positions along with the up and down palm
positions i.e. closed fist or two or three fingers up or down.

Dipping
Players stand up in a line or in a circle and count along the line the number of counts being prescribed by
the accented syllables of some little rhymes such as the following.

Err’ie, orr’ie round’ the ta’ble,

Eat as much’ as you’ are a’ble;

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 Association for Promotion of Creative Learning www.creativelearning.in

If you’re a’ble eat’ the ta’ble,

Err’ie orr’ie, out!

One child gabbles the words at speed pointing briefly at each player one by one. If the number of players is
less than fifteen, continue counting round the circle or along the line a second time counting himself first.
The person on whom the last count falls becomes the Leader/Queenie/Searcher/Chaser

Instead of the above rhyme the following dips may also be used.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z, YOU

One, two, sky blue,

All out but you.

Red white and blue,

All out but you.

Inky, pinky, ponky

My daddy brought a donkey
The donkey died,
Daddy cried;
Inky, pinky, ponky

Red, white and blue

The cat’s got the flu
The baby has the whooping cough
And out goes you

Iggy oggy
Black Froggy
Iggy oggy out

Ickle ockle
Chocolate bottle
Iccle occle out

Iddy oddy
Dogs body
Iddy oddy out

Ibble obble
Black bubble
Ibble obble out

Eettle ottle
Black bottle
Eettle ottle out
How to Start a Game

Ingle angle
Golden bangle
Ingle angle out

Counting fist
Children stand in a circle with face inwards and hold out their clenched fist, thumbs up. One child called
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dipper, tabs each fist in turn counting as he does so

One’ potato, two’ potatoes

Three potatoes four
Five potatoes, Six potatoes
Seven potatoes more.

The dipper includes his fist also by banging his right fist on his left fist and his left fist on his right fist. The fist
on which he pronounces ‘more’ he bangs hand more forcefully than he does on the others. The player then

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 Association for Promotion of Creative Learning www.creativelearning.in

puts his fist behind his back. The dipper goes on counting round and round eliminating further fists. The
player whose both fists are knocked down is declared ‘out’. The count continues till only one player is left
holding up a fist. That player is declared the Leader/Queenie /Searcher/Chaser.

Participation
When children grow older, they can clearly anticipate the number of words in the dips given above and they
can manipulate dips. Hence with older children participation dips should be used. These take the form of a
question

My mother made a nice seedy cake

Guess how many seeds were there in the cake?

The player reached with the word ‘cake’ gives any number he likes and the dipper continues for that number
of counts and then starts the counts on the spelling of the number. For example if the player has given the
number ‘eight’ the dipper will count

One two three four

Five six seven eight
E-I-G-H-T
Spells eight
So out are you.

The player pointed with ‘you’ becomes Leader/Queenie/Searcher/Chaser.

Similarly other participation dips are

Dic - dic - tation

cor - por - ation
how many buses
are in the station?

Engine engine on the line

Releasing smoke all the time
How many cc does it release?

My mother bought me a nice new dress

What colour do you guess?
(~ Green)
G-R-E-E-N
Was the colour of the dress
So out are you.

Micky mouse bought a house

What colour did he paint it?
Shut your eye and think
How to Start a Game

(~ R-E-D)
And you must go for saying so
With a clip across your ear hole

Winter garden full of flowers

Which flower do you choose?
(~ Rose)
R-O-S-E
Spells rose
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so out are you.

Eachie, peachie, pear, plum

When does your birthday come?
(Eighteenth January)
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,
J-A-N-U-A-R-Y
So out are you

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 Association for Promotion of Creative Learning www.creativelearning.in

Making Pairs or Groups

Many games and activities are conducted in pairs. Pairs can also be formed in interesting ways as given
below.

• Some pictures are collected from calendars, greeting cards, invitation cards, photographs,
newspaper pictures, etc. They are torn into two parts. All cards are then mixed together and kept in
a basket or on a table. Each player is then asked to pick up a card from the basket. Then they are
asked to find their partners. Each player goes to the other player and asks,
”Show me your card.”

He/She then compares the card of the player with his/her own card. If two cards are found to be
parts of the same picture, they join hands and say loudly
“We are partners.”

• Instead of tearing the same picture into two parts two similar sets of pictures may also be collected
and mixed.

• If pictures or cards are not available, similar paper pieces or railway tickets are taken and same
letter is written on two pieces of paper or tickets. This way different letters are written on different
pairs of pieces or tickets and mixed together. Similarly names of animals, fruits, vegetables,
opposites (king-queen, boy-girl, etc.) can also be written on the slips.

• If groups of three or four players are to be formed, similar activity can be designed with three or
four slips or cards having identical picture or words.
How to Start a Game
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