2 Acting Games: Dino Party & After School Fun

Before our dino-themed birthday party, with 7-year-olds, in a townhouse, I got nervous I didn’t have enough activities. I pictured raucous boys hanging from the rafters in our small space. There wasn’t a built-in activity, like swimming or pick-up soccer. I needed an extra fun game to pull out of my hat at the end.

Childhood acting games like charades, Win, Lose or Draw, and Pictionary, plus watching Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and playing Mad Libs must have inspired this old-fashioned-esque party game that came into being (the night before). It played out a little awkwardly at first, as the kids warmed up to it, it became hilarious. Mission accomplished.

How to Play “Dinosaurs Alive”

Each person got a card with a picture of a dinosaur on one side, and a few facts about it on the other side. We divided into pairs. One player was assigned “Predator,” the other, “Prey.” Each pair was supposed to act out a dramatic death or get-away scene based on the assigned roles (of predator or prey), and the assigned dinosaurs.

I got to play an Archaeopteryx, which had feathers and probably ate insects off its own body. I decided my animal had a bobbing neck and made high screechy-screechy noises as it pecked and withdrew, blinking often, wild eyed. Probably caricature, but who cares; the kids all laughed. I was loud. I was absurd. My predator partner was frightened and delighted as I bobbed, pecked, screeched, and cowered, and finally died at his giggling strike, most dramatically.

My favorite card to assign was “Stegosaurus,” who proudly “has a second small brain in its butt.”

This acting game was a fun way to keep the kids connecting with each other as the party wore on. I decided to try an acting game as an after-school activity I could do with the kids, a bridge between snack and homework that would hopefully bring us together.

After School Acting Game (Quick and Easy)

Here’s another acting game I made for after-school connective fun. We had three piles:

• one set of index cards naming persons (baby, great-grandpa, school principal, ballerina, stegosaurus);
• one set of index cards for actions (replace a light bulb, make spaghetti, swim to shore, dance a disco, drive a race car, etc), and
• one pile of prop pieces (Irish snap cap, Darth Vader mask, pirate eye patch, kitchen spoon, stethoscope, and so forth).

Each player pulled one thing from each pile (no peeking). We set a timer. And the show began! Voila!

It was fun to be silly with the kids. I may have enjoyed the game more than they did.

Please share your ideas! What’s your favorite acting game or play activity with kids? Any secrets?

What’s your favorite way to connect with your kids, and with imagination? Please comment. I’d love to hear from you!

If you want to see the scenarios that ensued for us after school, I present for you, highlights of the tenaciously absurd:

This would be great fun at a slumber party.

© 2015 – 2020, experience connect relish – all rights reserved.