What's in the Bag?

Time

4 3 2 1 Mid Stages

Benefits

Participants

One to One or Group Activity

What you need

A large cloth bag
Several random items, like a comb, calculator, bar of soap, cup, ball of wool, apple, cotton wool ball, necklace, shoelaces, marshmallows, Lego block, toy car, paintbrush, twigs, or wooden spoon

Intro

We’ve all played this ‘describe-the-object-without-saying-the-word’ game in some shape or form. It’s simple, great for encouraging teamwork, and guaranteed to get everyone’s minds ticking over.

Play it non-competitively to get people talking rather than feeling under pressure.

Top tip

It really doesn’t matter if people know what the objects are or not. It’s all about encouraging them to be as descriptive as possible!

The Activity

Take it in turns to let everybody hold the bag and dip their hand in to feel an object
Ask them to describe the object to the group but without using its name (e.g. if it’s a cup, they might say “made from China, has a handle and smooth edges”)
Encourage the rest of the group to guess what it is
Once the group has guessed correctly, the bag moves on for the next person to have a go
Keep going for as long as everyone’s having fun