Fun activities for junior high school students. Recreation games.
Introducing recreational activities for middle schoolers to enjoy during breaks, after school, or in free periods! We’ve gathered games that get everyone excited with friends and group activities that strengthen class bonds.
From games that test your ability to read the room to ones that challenge memory and reaction speed, there are lots of genres to enjoy.
They can even be a great chance to get closer to your friends! All the activities have simple rules and can be started right away, so invite your classmates and give them a try!
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Message, Gesture, and Expression Game (1–10)
Don’t drop it.
The “Don’t Let It Fall” game where you pretend an eraser is a hockey puck on a desk.
You play it kind of like air hockey.
All you need is an eraser and a table.
Flick your eraser with your finger, aiming to hit your opponent’s eraser and knock it off the table.
If yours gets knocked off, you lose—but if you flick too hard, you might fly off the table yourself and lose by accident.
Debate showdown
Convince your opponent! Here are some ideas for debate showdowns.
These ideas are great for developing logical thinking and communication skills.
Participants exchange opinions based on a given theme and strengthen their persuasive power to convince others.
In this game, you can train not only your speaking skills but also your listening skills and the ability to change your views flexibly.
By choosing familiar issues as themes and engaging in discussions at school or at home, you can also learn the importance of constructive exchanges of ideas.
Fruits Basket
English Twist! Here’s a fun Fruit Basket idea.
Prepare a number of chairs that is one fewer than the number of players.
The rules are the same as the classic Fruit Basket game! Divide everyone into teams by the four seasons.
The game starts with the call, “When is the season?” The person standing in the middle then calls out a specific season.
The team of the season that’s called stands up and moves to a different chair from the one they were sitting in.
If “All seasons!” is called, everyone stands up and switches the chairs they’re sitting in.
Back Telephone (a game like “Chinese whispers” played by tracing on someone’s back)
Focus your nerves on your back and take on the game! Here are some ideas for a Back-Telephone game.
In a regular telephone game, once a theme is chosen, the first person passes it on to the next person using words or gestures, and so on, aiming to convey the original theme correctly to the last person.
This time, try conveying it by writing on each other’s backs instead of using words or gestures.
Animals and characters make great themes! Once you get used to it, try increasing the difficulty with sentences or logos—it sounds like it could be a lot of fun!
Message, Gesture, and Expression Games (11–20)
Paper cup tic-tac-toe
Did you ever kill time playing tic-tac-toe, the game where you write O’s and X’s in a 3×3 grid and try to line up three in a row? This version makes it a bit harder by using paper cups.
First, prepare two colors of paper cups and put a small amount of a drink in each.
When you finish drinking, place the cup upside down and flick it with your fingertip.
If you can make the cup do a full flip, place it in a square on the grid.
Keep repeating, and whoever lines up three in a row wins.
It’s a game that will have you fretting over getting that cup to flip just right.
Impersonation
Above all, the classic recreation game is impersonations.
Impressions of Antonio Inoki, Beat Takeshi, Mickey Mouse, and Crayon Shin-chan are popular and easy to do.
To improve your impersonation skills, observe the gestures and mannerisms of the person you want to mimic, and regularly watch variety shows to learn from skilled impressionists.
Essential to impersonations are costume accessories—buy wigs and outfits at Don Quijote, dress just like the person, and boost the quality of your performance!
Telephone game
The telephone game is a classic recreation.
People sit in a line and start from the person at one end, who whispers the given word so that no one else can hear.
Each person then whispers it to the next, making sure no one else hears, and it goes down the line… The fun is seeing whether the message makes it all the way to the end intact.
Because everyone is whispering, the words can be hard to catch, and the message often doesn’t come through clearly—but that’s part of the fun, and it always leads to laughs and excitement.