Globe Spinners (indoor game)

Players: 4 or more in pairs
Materials: Spinning globe; atlas; clock with second hand; blindfold; pencil and notepad for each team

In this geography game, each team keeps track of the competing team’s progress. Players sit around a small table with their pads and pencils. At the center of the table, place a globe. Keep the clock and atlas on the table, too.

The first player in Team #1 stands. The second player spins the globe as fast as possible. Then the first player, without looking, stops the spinning globe with his finger. He calls out the place where his finger stopped, and his teammate must list everything he knows about the place in 15 seconds. If the country is Australia for example, he might write “kangaroos, Sydney, crocodile Dundee, Ayre’s Rock, Southern Hemisphere, down under…” while the other team watches the clock and calls “Time!” when 15 seconds are up.

Team #1 reads its list to Team #2 who records the number of items. If Team #2 challenges any item on the list as incorrect, the atlas is used, and either the listing team or challenging team lose a turn. The game continues as teams take turns spinning and timing.

Of course, stopping the globe with your finger doesn’t always mean landing on a country. If a spinner lands in the ocean, his teammate has 15 seconds to list everything she can peculiar to that ocean. If it’s the Atlantic Ocean, for instance, she might list “Plymouth Rock, Maine,

whaling ships, and Boston Harbor.” If it’s the Mediterranean, she’ll have to think about the French Riviera and ancient Greece.

The first team to reach 100 points wins the game.

Collected from The Little Giant Book of Kids’ Games by Glen Vecchione