Clarion Call

Genre – Outdoor Game

Learning objectives:

• An exciting activity that helps children overcome hesitation and shyness and facilitates effortless mingling by bonding with their peer group.

Materials Required:

• Music (optional)

How to Play:

1. The Guru asks the children to move in a circle while the music is being played.
2. Then she calls out a number, for example 3, and the children should form clusters of 3, with each other holding hands. It need not be just those adjacent to them that they should form clusters. (If there are 13 children, obviously one will be left out.)
3. Again the children start moving in a circle to the tune of music.
4. Next, she calls out say, 5 and they form clusters of 5 and so on.
5. The game continues in this manner till just 1 or 2 children remain in the end and they are the winners.
6. It can be made more interesting by adding numbers like half and quarter also. To denote half, a child has to bend and to denote quarter the child has to sit on the ground. (Ex. with 9 children, if the guru wants the number 8+1/4 then the children should form a cluster of eight standing and the ninth child sitting on the ground (1/4).

Tips to gurus:

• This game is in the nature of an icebreaker. Sometimes the guru finds that some children do not mix up with their peer group so easily and are comfortable only with a friend or two. This game can help such children to befriend others easily.
• Hence to achieve this purpose, it is important that the guru sees that the children are positioned at random and not with their favourite friends while forming the circle.