7.24.2011

A fun personal history game for family reunions!

This last weekend I had a family reunion at my house (with my parents and siblings).  I was thinking it would be fun to come up with a fun way to get them to record some things about when they were little and share them with everyone.  So, here’s what I did:  (And hopefully this is not too confusing.)

I wrote at the top of the paper, “When you were a kid…”.  Then I listed 10 things each person had to answer.  I gave the papers to each person and told them fill them out and not to show their answers to anyone.  

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When everyone had filled out their forms, I went through all of them, and wrote down one person’s answer for each question, and put their name next to it.   I made sure that everyone had at least one thing on there.

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Next it was time for guessing.  I gave everyone an answer sheet to fill out.  I know this is kind of confusing, so here’s a detail of what I did—question #1 was “What was your favorite TV show?”  and #2 was “What was one crazy/funny/silly thing you did?”.  When it was time for everyone to answer, I said, “This person’s favorite TV show was ‘Saved By the Bell’.  Then everyone wrote who they thought it was.  Next, I said, “This person gargle the ABC’s in a school talent show”.  Then everyone wrote who they thought did that, and so on.

When all the questions were given, I asked who they thought #1 was, told them who it was, and asked who got it right.  Then I read everyone’s answers for #1, so we could all hear what everyone’s favorite TV show was.  (And to hear all the funny, crazy and dumb things we did as kids!  I found out that my mom got a speeding ticket just after she turned 16, and had lied about where she was going, so then she had to tell her mom about why she was where she was when she got the ticket!  My brother was at a sleepover, and he and his friends toilet papered our house and got caught by our neighbor!   My husband threw a snowball at the neighbor’s window and broke it!)
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It was a hit, to say the least!  Even the kids (as in my kids) were enchanted by listening to all the funny stories of things their parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents did when they were kids!   Most people got 4 or 5 right, but my dad got 9 right, and my brother got 2 right.  I gave a 1st place prize and a booby prize out. 

Here are the questions I used: What was your favorite TV show?  What was one silly, crazy, or funny thing you did?  Who was your hero?  What was your favorite toy?  What was your favorite outside activity?  What was your favorite food?  What was your favorite candy bar?  What was your favorite chore?  What was your least favorite chore?  What was one bad mistake you made? 

More questions I thought about (or that my family suggested) using for next time:  What was your favorite color?  Who was one of your best friends?  What was your favorite book?  Where was your favorite family vacation?  What was the most painful thing you did?  What was your most embarrassing moment?  What was your favorite pet?  Who was your favorite teacher?  What did you like to do in the summer/fall/winter/spring?  What did you want to be when you grew up? 

Suggestions: 
*Do this with the adults only, at least if they are kid questions.   You could do a variance on it with the children and do favorites now.  (It will just be very dated if you do things like movies and there are more than 2 generations involved.)
*Have one question (or more) per person—otherwise not everyone will get to have their name on the list.  If you are having a large reunion with more than 3 generations, just have the oldest generation (or two) answer the questions and have everyone guess. 
*It’s okay to have more than one person with the same answer on a question—it just makes more guesses available.





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