Sharks and Minnows

I've learned with kids under the age of 8 you can't go wrong with pirates, (the kind with parrots on their shoulders, not the Somali kind.) This week I turned my pirate party I had in June (see June 2010) into an after school activity aimed at elementary aged. I did not have a pirate storyteller but instead included several pirate/aquatic-themed games.

One game we played was the classic "Sharks and Minnows." In this game one child is chosen as a shark and stands in the center of the room. The rest of the children are minnows and must cross to the other side of the room without being tagged by the shark. If the shark tags a minnow, that minnow becomes a shark. You play until there is one lone minnow left. I have a fairly large auditorium so I thought this game would be fun. We had about a dozen kids playing, ranging from 4-10.

Things were going fun until there were two minnows left, one tiny girl that can't have been older than five and one boy not much older than that. They were faced by ten exciting, shouting, and eager sharks. When I said "go" for the minnows to cross over to the other side, it was kind of like those nature shows where hyenas descend on a gazelle. Ten older kids jumped on these two little kids, saying "we got you", pushing them and herding them to the other side of the room. I was fearful one of them got hurt since the older kids were so excited. Fortunately no one was but I decided we were done with "Sharks and Minnows." After that we stuck to a game like Hot Potato, where it was less likely one could get run over.