King of the Jungle is a fun silly circle game that helps people come out of their comfort zones. The only preparations you need for this game is to arrange chairs in a circle. Ideal to be played indoors as well as outdoors, it will put a lot of animation and laughter at your birthday party.
Game sheet
- Number of players: from 6 children
- Ages: from 6 years old
- Supplies: chairs
- Played indoors or outdoors
- Play time: about 20 min
King of the jungle party game rules
You can adjust this game for large group games, medium group games or small group games. There are only a few rules, everyone needs to remember what they need to do, plus they can work together to remember what needs to happen next.
The goal of the game it to be the “King of the Jungle.” The first thing you must do is, after getting everyone to sit down, is give an animal and a gesture to everyone in the circle. You can let everyone choose an animal and a gesture or you can assign one to them.
If you decide you want to assign animals and gestures here are a few you can choose from:
- Gorilla – Pound their chests with your fists make ape sounds
- Elephant – Lift one arm up to your nose like it’s a trunk
- Bird – flap you arms like a birds wings
- Chicken – Put your hands in your armpits and flap your arms
- Alligator – Stick out both arms to make “jaws”
- Bear – Make claws with your hands
- Lion – Make a “main” with your arms and growl
- Snake – Have your arms slither
- Fish – Make your hands gills and make a fishy kiss face
- Monkey – Pull out your ears and puff up your cheeks
- Worm-Wiggle your pinky finger
How you play King of the Jungle is to first have the “King” set up a 1-2-3-4-5 rhythm:
On beat 1 you pat your knees
On beat 2 you clap your hands
On beat 3 you point your left thumb to the left
On beat 4 you point your right thumb to the right
On 5 you do an animal sign (not your own) to pass the play to someone else
The person with “that” animal’s signal is the next to do a sign. He/she then does the same pattern the “King” did and chooses a new animal sign at the end.
This continues until someone makes a mistake. When a mistake is made, the one that messed up moves to the left of the “King” and everyone else moves up one seat. Everyone who moved changes their animal to the animal that assigned to their new chair. All those who have changed seats must then make the sign of the animal of the child who was in that seat. The children then exchange the animal they represent and their sign at each change of place.
The educational advantages of the game
- generates fun atmosphere
- builds relationships and improves team cohesion
- allows you to work on the sense of observation
- it is an effective way of encouraging students to develop their acting skills in terms of body language.
- enhances non-verbal communication skills
- learning and listening to the rules of the game
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