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Need Help with Gardening Games
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Posted by Jujam 8/9 (My Page) on Thu, Jun 2, 05 at 17:56
| Our county is hosting a MG advanced training program this fall and we are trying to come up with some "breaking the ice" games that we can play especially that first day of registration so that when people show up they don't just go to their little groups. We want something that will sort of get everyone to mingle with everyone else and also just to take a break from the lectures, etc. Does anyone have any gardening games that they would be willing to share. We expect to have about 50-60 MG's in attendance. Any help at all will be appreciated. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| Jujam: Three ice-breaker games come to mind: 1. Make 50 cards with 50 different photos/pictures of common flowers on them. There should be five photos each of ten botanical families of flowers. Hand out the cards in a random fashion to the participants as they enter. The object (announced after you have a full room) is for each participant to (1) identify the flower and (2) find the other four matches within the family. The first 5-member "team" to gather (correctly, of course) wins a prize. 2. Or use such cards to stick to the back of each person and each person is required to play the yes-no questions game with others to identify what the photo is on their back. Kinda like "Who Am I?" or "Celebrities". Each participant will be allowed to ask ONE yes-no question of any other participant and may ask as many participants as need be. When the participant thinks he or she has the corect i.d., they offer it to a central person. Give prizes to the first 5 or 10 who have the correct i.d.. Those who "rush" to identify themselves but do so incorrectly are disqualified (their card is YANKED). The photos can be flowers, trees, vegetables, or even common pests and diseases. Maybe even photos of well-known gardening celebrities. 3. Give each participant when they enter a list of ten "odd" gardening behaviors, faux pas', and/or accidents. For example "Planted a bulb upside down", "Broken a shovel", "Found a seed packet that you forgot to sow -- FIVE years ago", "Called a home gardener back because you realized you made a mistake on the first call", "Pruned just before a plant was suppose to bloom", "Used the wrong herbicide -- with disastrous results", etc. Make the items special without being too far out there. Each participant is asked to find ten different people who fit the ten individual bills. Leave a line at the end of each item for the participant to write in first name and last name initial of each "garden screw up". Joe |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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Joe - thank you very much those sound great! I'll copy your post and take it to our meeting next week.
Last year we had cotton balls dipped in 5 flower fragrances and had one fragrance per bottle and mixed them up unlabeled. We handed a bottle to each person as they registered and then told them they had to find someone with a similar "smell". That turned out to be fun, but we wanted something different and these sound great. Thanks again. |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| Another really neat ice breaker is "Secret Smells" from Texas A&M's Junior Master Gardener Book. It is basically like the card game (Number 1) above, but you hand each person a black 35mm film canster with a cotton ball dabbed with something smelly. The groups have to find themselves the same way insects do - by smell (No talking!). Just a bit of caution. Some people do get smell induced migrane headaches. |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| EJB190 - thank so much for your suggestion. We have a meeting next week and I'll have some good ideas to share. Judy |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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Oversize nametaqs are good ice breakers. Have people search for at least 2 matches. Example:
EDDIE GREENMAN: fruit trees, grafting, vegetables, stand-up comedian, guitarist, songwriter, flirt.
(limit garden comments to 4) (minimum of personal info:3) Also, on my website there is a cute little quiz. Logon to
http://www.mindspring.com/~erhoades/contests/index.htm and scroll to Name That Tree.
You are welcome. |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| Thanks Eddie - but I was unable to log onto your website for some reason. |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| Great suggestions! We have played MAster Gardener Bingo to introduce new members to the group at their first meeting after training. I divided a sheet of paper into 25 squares and put some gardening characteristic in each one. The instructions are to get the signature of someone in each box who has: a water garden, grows raspberries, starts their own vegetable seedlings, sells at a farmer's market, has more than 3 types of lilies, etc, etc. People mingle and talk, and when their cards are filled with signatures (cannot repeat names if you have a large group), we play BINGO by pulling names of people present out of a hat. When you cover five people's names in a row, you have a winner! |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| WOW - what a great game also - thank you for your input. Judy |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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Judy,
Sometimes , on certain days you can't always get what you want - on the Internet. Please try again as this is a cute quiz on my site, listed below. Once there, click on contests and scroll down to the tree quiz.
Sample:
tree clue - HAND
answer - PALM tree
Eddie |
Here is a link that might be useful: CONTESTS
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| Eddie - you've got a real cool website !!! Thank you very much for sharing. |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| Taste tests of unlabled edible herbs are fun to do, even more fun in the yard wear they are actually growing. |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| Passiflora - that also is a great idea and one that I will jot down for the future. Unfortunately our county extension office is leasing the building and only has a small postage stamp area to have some demonstration areas set up. We were trying to get a grant to move to a larger facility with lots of land, but last year's hurricanes in put the move on hold. |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| Jujam: Update? Results? Joe |
RE: Need Help with Gardening Games
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| This is TOTALLY unhelpful, but...My friend Yulia and I joke a lot about "Extreme Gardening, the sport". Her extreme gardening events are "boulder-moving" and "pit-digging". My extreme gardening events are the "overplanted garden-bed one-foot balance for weeding" and the "bulb-a-thon". Gardening is NOT for wimps :-) |
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