Running a group activity well is not really about which games you pick. It is about whether every child in the group, including the ones who hang back, actually gets to play. A good set of games falls flat if half the group never feels welcome to join in, and the opposite is also true: thoughtful, fair group management can make even a simple game feel genuinely inclusive.
Forming groups fairly
Left to pick their own teams, children overwhelmingly default to existing friendships, which tends to exclude whoever is newest, shyest, or simply less popular at that moment. Randomly formed groups, by contrast, have no existing pecking order to protect, which makes them considerably more open to including everyone from the start.
A few simple, genuinely fun ways to form random groups:
Calling out numbers. Have the whole group walk or jog in a loop, singing or chanting. Call out a number, and everyone scrambles to form a group of exactly that size. Repeat with different numbers a few times before settling on your final grouping, which mixes the group up more thoroughly than a single call.
Islands. Mark a few “islands” around the space using hula hoops, rope circles, or pieces of fabric. Ask everyone to mime swimming or rowing a boat around the islands. Call out a number, and groups of that size step onto an island together. Repeat a few times for a better mix.
Matching items. Ask everyone to put one shoe, sock, or hat into a central pile. Draw items out in sets (five hats for a group of five, say) and ask the owners to find each other.
Secret animals. Hand out small pieces of paper, each marked with one of a few animal names or pictures. Without speaking, ask everyone to make the sound and gesture of their animal and find the others who match.
Making space for girls, and for anyone who tends to hang back
In many settings, girls are genuinely less likely to be free to simply wander over and join an informal game, often because of household responsibilities, safety concerns getting to and from the activity, or simply not being actively invited. The same often applies to children with disabilities, who are easily, if unintentionally, left out of games built around running and speed.
A genuinely inclusive activity usually needs a deliberate plan, not just an open invitation. That can mean reaching out specifically through people girls already trust, actively naming that children with disabilities are welcome, adjusting a game’s rules slightly so a motor impairment does not mean automatic elimination, and simply asking, directly, whether the timing and location work for everyone who might want to come.
Positive leadership, in practice
The adult or older child running the activity sets the tone more than any single rule does. That means modelling fair play and real respect, having zero tolerance for bullying or aggressive behaviour dressed up as competitiveness, and treating a mistake, a dropped ball, a broken rule, as a normal part of playing rather than something to call out harshly.
It also helps to agree on ground rules together before starting, rather than simply imposing them. Ask the group directly: what’s a fair consequence if someone fouls? What should happen if someone hits or pushes another player? Children who help set the rules tend to actually follow them, and enforce them on each other, far more consistently than rules handed down from above.
Checking in afterward
A short reflection at the end of an activity, what did you enjoy, what would you change, is it worth doing for its own sake. For children who find it hard to say this kind of thing out loud in a group, having a couple of volunteers, ideally one boy and one girl, available afterward for a quieter, private word works just as well.
None of this changes which games you play. It changes whether the games actually work the way they are meant to, for every child in the group, not just the ones who were always going to join in anyway.
