We play the Human Scavenger Hunt at the beginning of every PTO meeting... it gets people talking and laughing, which keeps our meetings more upbeat and energetic. Whoever completes their hunt first, recieves a door prize.
M & M GAME: Pass around a bowl of m & m's to the group and instruct them to take as many as they would like, but not to eat any. When everyone has taken some, have each of them tell something about themselves for each m & m they took.
Picture your goal: have crayons and a piece of paper for everyone. Ask them to draw a goal, using the crayons. Once everyone is done, have them tell about their picture. *This would be good for the kid's to see that their parents actually "color"*
Human Scavenger Hunt. Description: Break the large group into smaller groups of about six to twelve people each. Have each group stand or sit together in a place that is separate from the other groups but of equal distance from you - the leader who stands in the middle of the room.
Read one item from the list at a time. The team who sends up a person or group of people to you first that fits the description you have just given earns a point. For example, you might say "two people who have the same middle name" and within each group the members must talk, find out if any two have the same middle name, and then quickly send those people up to you. The first group of people with the same middle name to reach you earns a point for their team. You may give a bonus point for different items if it applies - for instance, if a group has three people with the same middle name they may earn a point for this round even if they were not the first to get to you. The group with the most points at the end of the game wins.
Human Scavenger Hunt List
a. Two people who have the same first and last initial
b. The person in your group who was born the farthest away from here
c. Two people with the same middle name
d. A group of people whose ages add up to 100
e. A group of people whose shoe sizes add up to 40
f. The person in your group who lives the closest to here
g. A group of people who have attended school for a total of 38 years
h. Two people with the same birthday (or birthday month)
I. A group of people who can spell a word by putting together the first letters of their first names
j. A group of three people who all have different colored eyes
BINGO: You know the game, but the "numbers" are questions (has a dog, speaks more than 1 language, etc.)
I've got a ton more. Let me find them and I'll post them...
2. Quick ideas to get people focused in the room on each other; also ready to participate.
Go around the table (or circle) and complete one of these sentences:
• Once upon a time, I...
• My ideal vacation is...
• The riskiest thing I ever did was...
• The wildest thing I ever did (that I'll admit to ) is...
These are easy to make up and can be topical (what I did on my summer vacation, my plans for the weekend are...)
Out of the Box: Place slips of paper in a box containing (silly) actions. A person is to take a slip out of the box and then *teach* the rest of the group how to do the action (leadership skills and a good stretch break). If they don't know the actions, they make them up - the key is to *teach* them to everyone else. Examples of ones we used include "the Itsy Bitsy Spider poem," "deep breathing and stretching," "the Macarena," "shadow boxing." Be creative.
Cup Stack: Tie six pieces of string (about 1.5'-2' long) to an elastic band at even intervals (like rays of a sun). Lay 10 styrofoam cups out on the table. The team members have to pick up the cups and stack them into a pyramid using only the elastic/string tool. The team to do it the fastest wins. (Have cups and elastics/strings for each team.) They have to work together to work the strings to get the elastic to pick up and release the cups.
You could do some fun activities, one that comes to mind is come up with a list of like 10 questions such as : This person has two or more kids, This person has lived in another state, This persons job is________ . Give everyone a sheet and tell them they have 40 seconds to find answers for them all. Of course there are no wrong answers, it just gets people to mingle.
Another activity that I have done at a PTO meeting is color code seats into teams of 3 or 4. each team gets paper, markers and crayons and have to come up with a new PTO mascot. They have to do a mascot and then talk about what it is and why they chose that. Make sure that the colors are evenly distribute among all seats, so that friends who sit together are split up for this.
Another activity that I have done is come up with a phrase about involvement/schools and wrap each letter of the phrase in little jewerly boxes and then stick them all into a huge wrapped box, as a group they have a minute to unwrap and put the letters in order to spell out the phrase. You may have to give a little hint, such as putting on a black board the number of letters in each word.
Another thing that you can do is come up with a theme picture (like a ocean floor), on index cards write words that go along with your theme (fish, sand, shells, seaweed, sea horse, ship wreck, etc.) put the cards in a bag and have everyone pull one. They then have to draw what is on the card (same size paper for all) then one by one glue the pictures together to make a mural. Moral: everyone adds something to the picture.
There are quite a few things like this you could do, have fun with it. Do a skit, make paper quilt squares, make a giant puzzle. People may laugh about doing it but it also breaks up the air and things get more relaxed! Good luck!
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
