Throwing Festivals

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Description

Throw and catch the question ball to share some facts about your favourite festival and learn about everyone else’s.

Courtesy of The Scout Association
https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/throwing-festivals/


Resources

Pens or pencils
Scrap paper
Sticky tape
Soft balls (one for each group)

Take it further
Everyone could bring in some food, clothing, or music that’s part of their chosen festival – put them all together to have a big party celebrating everyone’s festivals. Everyone should talk about why and when their festivals take place, and share their experiences. If you include some celebrations or festivals that usually take place in another country, this would meet requirement four of the Cub International Activity Badge.

Instructions

Before you begin
It’s probably a good idea to let everyone know you’ll be playing this game in advance, so they have some time to choose their favourite festival and think about it. You could let people know in your meeting, or contact their parents or carers. Everyone can then arrive ready to talk about what their festival celebrates or means, and the food, clothes, and customs involved.


Play the game
1. Split into small groups, and give each group a soft ball, pens, scraps of paper, and tape.

2. Each group should think of some questions about festivals, and write them on the scraps of paper. The questions should be ones that everyone can answer.
For example: What does your festival celebrate or mean? Do you have any special food? Do you wear any special clothes? Is there any music or dancing? Are any stories told at (or about) the festival?

3. Each group should use the sticky tape to stick their questions all over their ball.

4. Everyone should pause for a moment, and remember the festival they’ve chosen as their favourite.

5. Each group should stand in a circle. The first person should throw the ball to someone else in their group.

6. When someone catches the ball, they should look at the question their right thumb is touching and answer it for their festival. They may need to remind their group what their favourite festival is before they answer. It doesn’t matter too much if people get their right and left mixed up.

7. Once someone has answered the question, they should throw the ball to someone else.

8. Repeat steps five to seven until everyone’s shared things about their favourite festival.


Reflection
- This activity helped you to develop your beliefs. Why did you choose your festival? What does it mean to you – does it link to things you believe, or a faith? How does the festival change your attitude to things (for example, does it make you thankful for something)? How does your festival make you feel? What do you think is the most important bit of your festival – is it spending time with family, remembering a story or historical event, saying sorry, saying thank you, or something else?
- This activity also helped you to respect others. How did you show others respect when they were talking about their festivals? Were there any similarities between the different festivals? Would you like to join in with or experience any other festival? What can we do to show people celebrating other festivals that we value them (could you learn a greeting for everyone’s festival, or adapt your activities, for example, making sure you don’t do something food based if someone is fasting)?


Change the level of challenge
- It’s up to you whether people can answer the same question more than once, or whether they should choose the nearest question they haven’t answered.
- Once everyone in the circle has answered one question, pause. The team should now try to throw the ball back in reverse order – each person should throw the ball to the person who threw it to them the first time. They should try to remember (and say) the festival that person has chosen, and what they said about it.


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Badge Links

  • Faith - Tell a story
  • Faith - Write