Game idea: Identity

At two recent events, we've played variations of the new "Identity" TV game show. It doesn't require the props of "Deal or No Deal," and you don't need 101 competitors, a la "1 vs 100." Here are two ways we've played it; there are a host of other variations you can try.

TEAM COMPETITION
Gather a group of students -- the "participants" -- away from the rest of the crowd. Learn 1 unique fact about each participant ("I've been to all 50 states" or "I teach kids how to bellydance"). The remaining students break up into groups of 3 or 4 people. The participants enter the room, each one holding a number 1, 2, 3, etc. The teams must match the participants number with one of the "identities" on the screen above; these are the unique facts you gathered from the participants. Winning team is the one that has the most correct matches for the participants. We used this variation at a United service with 3 other youth groups.

TEAM-BUILDING ACTIVITY
Similar concept, but this time, all the members of a group participate. We've used this with our team preparing for a Mexico missions trip this summer. Each person writes down a unique trait on a piece of paper and passes the papers to the moderator. On a separate piece of paper, each team member writes the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc. on the left-hand side. The moderator then randomly picks a piece of paper and reads that trait. Next to the number 1, team members then write down the name of the person. This continues until all the traits have been read, and the winner is the one who knew the most about the other team members. Worked well as an icebreaker and a reminder that as a team, we need to know each other and love each other for our missions trip to be a success.