Bombs Away!

A twist on dodge ball that works in small spaces, with small groups, and with kids of any age!

Gather at least 3 soft foam balls. It's best to have half as many balls as you have players, but as long as you have 3 you can make it work. The balls will be thrown at people, although they won't be flying across the room as fast as they do in a dodgeball game. In a pinch you could use the paper snowballs from our snowball fight game.

Have the children (and staff!) line up in two parallel rows, facing the same direction, shoulder to shoulder, with a gap of about 6 feet between the two rows. You should end up with all the people in the back row facing the backs of the people in the front row. Change the distance of the gap depending on your age group - closer together for young'uns, further apart for older kids.

If you don't have enough balls for half the group, only have as many people in the front row as there are balls. It's okay to have more in the back row than the front.

We like to start out with all of our junior leaders in the back row, and the kids in the front.

Hand each person in the front row a ball. While still facing forward, they have to lob the ball backward over the head in an attempt to hit one of the people in the back row.

The back row cannot move! They must stand still and take the hit if it comes at them. But they can catch a ball, in which case they switch places with whoever threw it. If kids are not able to catch the balls you can randomly have the rows switch (or just turn around!) to give everyone a chance to be the bomber and the bombed.

No one ever gets "out" in this game, which means kids are always participating and never sitting bored on the sidelines! If you have a competitive group you could try to keep score of hits, but our kids are usually satisfied just to play it.