Can you come up with a cooperative version of the children's game 'musical chairs'?

Answer 1

Here's two alternative versions of musical chairs. The first one has no losers and is pure silly fun. The other one is a team sport with a winning team, but you have to cooperate with your team mates. The first one is probably more suited to younger children and the second one to older kids.

A no-losers version of musical chairs is one where you have TWO circles of chairs (or two rows of chairs) and just like the regular version of musical chairs each circle has one less chair than the number of people in that circle. Either use two different colors of chair or else tape shapes or pictures to the chair. (So one circle of chairs could be the red chairs, or the triangle chairs, or the kitty chairs; and the other circle could be the blue chairs, or the square chairs, or the puppy chairs.)

Just like in regular musical chairs when the music starts you walk around your circle of chairs. When the teacher hits the "pause" button to stop the music, everybody scrambles for a chair in their circle.

If you can't get to a chair in time and are left standing you have to switch to the other circle. So when it's clear who is left standing, the teacher calls SWITCH and the standing kid from each circle goes to the other circle while the music starts up again.

The game ends when the tape or CD is over or when everyone has had enough silliness.

The second version is one you could call "Musical balls" or "Musical distraction." It's a team sport and therefore is a little more complicated than the first one. Whichever team is biggest at the end of the game wins.

Don't use chairs. Instead the main prop you need is big sized balls (or bean bags or cushions).

Split the students into two teams. (It's OK if one team has one more student than the other.) One team will be in the center walking to the music and the other team will be outside the walking circle. Just like in baseball or some other games the two teams will switch positions over the course of the game.

The inside circle team gets roughly one ball for every two kids on the team. (If the team has an odd number of kids it can still work. For example for 5 kids you would give them 2 balls.) Their goal during the music is to work as a team to keep the balls from dropping to the ground as they walk in a circle. If they drop a ball they can't pick it up during the music.

This is trickier for the walking circle than it sounds! Before starting the music the first time you tell the inner circle that they can help each other keep the balls held up but that each time the outer team will be allowed to distract them plus the ball carriers will only be allowed to use one hand to hold their ball, forcing them to work together to hold the large balls up.

Then you tell the outer team that their job is to distract the walkers so they drop as many balls as possible. They aren't allowed to touch the walkers with their hands but they can distract them in other ways.

You pick the distraction methods you will let them use based on the supplies your class or playgroup has. You could allow any one of these or more than one:
*making silly faces
*throwing light foam balls or sponges at the walkers
*using long feathers to tickle
*blowing up balloons and then releasing them so they go zooming and whooshing through the walking circle.
*some other distraction you like

When the music stops you count the balls that the walking circle team dropped. If the walking team dropped two balls they would lose two players to the other team. (The players that have to switch teams would be the ones closest to the music player at the moment the music stops. If you didn't want to use the music player to mark the "hot spot" or "danger zone" that it's bad to be near when the music stops, then you can choose a different spot that works for the space you play in. For example you could pick a marking on a rug.)

Then the two teams switch places with the kids that were ball carriers becoming distractors and vice versa. Before starting the music again, you'd adjust the number of balls so that once again it was roughly two ball carriers per ball.

As the music played once again the ball carriers would help each other keep the balls up while the distractors tried to make them lose focus.

After 4 musical innings the biggest team would win.

Answer 2

All games played by more than one person necessarily involve *both* co-operation and competition. Players of a game co-operate by agreeing to follow the rules of the game. If players refuse to play by any rules no game is possible. Likewise, if players of games did *nothing but* cooperate there could be no game because they would all be aiming at the same outcome. In order for player A and player B to co-operate completely they would have to choose which of them was going to 'win' and then both work to bring about that result. Such an event would not be a game, it would be an absurdity.

Answer 3

So much politcal correctness. We have to find a game where no one loses? Children should learn at an early age that sometimes life isn't fair. They need to learn right away that for every action there is a reaction, and sometimes that reaction can be harsh. Political correctness bears a huge responsibility for many of today's problems in the world. Kids will survive losing at the game of musical chairs.

Answer 4

One may be like ring-around-the-Rosy, instead of singing ring around the rosy, just play music and have them sit when music is off. Last person standing is out.
There are many games that are the same order as musical chairs and you can replace one with the other. Is that what you wanted? Tried to help.

Answer 5

I have read about events where kids can play noncompetitive, cooperative games. Can't find the exact group on the web, but two places to start might be www.peacegames.org (teach nonviolence in schools) and a commercial site, www.inewgames.com. (Searching "peace games" brought up over 40,000 web sites!) Might also search "nonviolent children's games" or something similar. Hope this is helpful.