A great game for groups suggested by @the_drama_centre. And obviously, one that helps with drama skills. The name “Stare Swap” for this was given by one of the children, but it reminds us of a similar game called “Keep Your Partner” that was popular at a youth group.
Everybody takes a chair, places and sits in it randomly around the room. One person (usually the leader at the start) remains standing without a chair.
Players through non-verbal communication only, have to get the attention of another player and indicate they want to swap places and then when they have indicated they are ready to do so, swap places. However, they have to swap chairs without the person standing beating them to an empty chair and leaving them as the one standing.
The game has multiple elements such as getting other’s attention, awareness of others and being signalled to, and then communicating, of when to actually swap. Players will find it better if they do this all non-verbally and as discretely as possible to make it harder for the person standing to know its going to happen. It leads to whole new levels of clandestine communications.
If want something similar consider Keep Your Partner or Wink Murder both of which use non-verbal communication (a wink).
