Do you know of any archaeology games to play?
Dr. dig responds:
1. Charades. Here's an old favorite that most of them will know, but keep the theme archaeological. Fill a bucket with slips of paper on which are written archaeological terms and definitions such as trowel, measuring tape, trench, pottery, dig, and artifact. Or you might want the theme to be cultural and include words and ideas relevant to the particular culture you are teaching.
2. Estimation Game. You will need a metric measuring tape for this one. Have all the team members estimate how far it is to the nearest tree, telephone pole, car, cactus. A little introduction to the metric system may be necessary here. But they will catch on quickly, especially if they know that best guesses get tootsie rolls or jolly ranchers as prizes.
3. Fortunately/unfortunately. Choose somebody to start the game with a doom-laden statement like "the excavation was interupted by the eruption of a volcano". Going clockwise round the circle, the person on the left follows this up with something beginning with "fortunately." "Fortunately, the lava flowed in the opposite direction, and all the team were safe." The weird and wonderful tale continues, mishap after mishap until everybody is reduced to a fit of giggles. The only rule is that the subject of every unfortunately/fortunately story addition must have something archaeological about it.
4. Picture pieces. You will need at least 1 full color picture from an archaeology magazine for each child. Cut each picture into five pieces. Keep one and stick the remaining four pieces of each picture at random around the walls with blue tack or tape. Give each person one of the reserved pieces and tell them to go and find the other four pieces, which isn't as easy as it sounds. You can play this game in two ways: 1. The first person with a complete correctly fitted together wins. 2. As people complete their picture, give them another piece. The person with the greatest number of complete pictures -- when you blow the whistle -- wins. You will need to cut up a lot more pictures than you have players.
