Talent Games for Kids

Everyone's got a talent hidden away, whether it's a musical or gymnastic skill or a hereditary ability like a funky double-jointed thumb. You can host a great set of games for kids to show off their tricks and talents, whether at a birthday party, as a school activity, for a playgroup or summer program, as a theater warm-up or for another group gathering of your own devising!

Host a talent show. The simplest way to show off the greatest variety of kids' talents is to let them display any sort of talent they may have in a staged performance. You might get jugglers, hand-standers, singers, musicians or even visual artists able to work quickly live. In order to turn any simple talent show into a kids game, you can assign a leader and allow challengers to go head-to-head against the leader for 60 seconds. At the end of the time, have the audience cheer for each of the participants and whoever gets the loudest cheers moves on to the next round, facing another challenger. You might choose to alert the local media (kids love seeing their names and faces in print) depending on how many participants you plan to have. Who knows just how fantastic their talents might be!

Play a fun and fast-paced, free association game with singing to keep kids' vocal chords — not to mention their brains — sharp and active. Start by putting everyone in a circle. Then choose one person to start by singing a few lines from any song. Once that person is done singing, he or she points to another random person in the circle who free associates another song based off the first. For instance, "Rain Rain Go Away" might be followed by "Singing in the Rain," which might be followed by the first lines of "My Favorite Things" which start, "Raindrops on roses ... " This game is best played with older kids who already know plenty of songs. Let the singing begin!

Set up a game where kids get to think about and identify the talent of a special guest or grown-up. Start by asking the kids to name as many possible talents that they can think of — which might include anything from storyteller to athlete to artist. Bring in a volunteer Special Guest with a specific, secret talent and split the kids up into two teams for 20 Questions. Each team will be allowed to ask a single yes/no question at a turn in order to figure out the Special Guest's secret talent. The team that guesses correctly wins!