🎡 Challenge Wheel
Spin the wheel and do whatever it lands on: tell a joke, do an impression, sing a line, take on a physical challenge or answer a question. It is a fast, cheerful party game that gives every child a moment in the spotlight.
What you need
Equipment: A wheel (a drawn poster with a spinner, or a wheel app). Make a wheel (drawn on poster board with an arrow, or a spinner app on a phone) with 6 sections: Joke, Impression, Song, Physical Challenge, Question and Capy's Choice. Prepare 4 ideas for each section.
How to play Challenge Wheel
- Show the wheel and read out what each section means.
- The first player spins the wheel.
- Announce the section and give a specific task, like "Impression: a teacher who lost her marker."
- The player has 15 seconds to think and up to a minute to perform.
- The group judges with applause, soft or loud.
- Landed on Capy's Choice? The adult picks the most challenging task on the list.
- Same section twice in a row? The player gets a harder version.
- Pass the wheel to the next player.
Scoring and wrapping up
Scoring: Task completed: 2 points. Extra loud applause: 1 bonus point. Refusing a task: 0 points and skip a turn.
To finish: After 2-3 rounds, add up the points and crown the Wheel Champion.
By age
- Ages 5-7: simple physical tasks and animal impressions. Read the task out loud for them.
- Ages 8 and up: add jokes, songs and harder versions of each task.
Variations
- Big group: play in teams, and the whole team performs the task together.
- Capy twist: the player who spins may pass the task to someone else, but then must do the next one themselves.
Tips for the adult in charge
- A free spinner app on a phone works perfectly.
- Let a shy child swap their task for a different one in the same section.
Safety
Keep tasks safe and never embarrassing.
🖨️ Printable wheel tasks
Cut out the tasks and sort them by section. Draw one when the wheel lands.
- Joke: Tell a knock-knock joke.
- Joke: Tell any joke in a robot voice.
- Joke: Make up a joke about a banana.
- Joke: Tell a joke while standing on one leg.
- Impression: A teacher who lost her marker.
- Impression: A cat seeing a cucumber.
- Impression: A sports commentator at a snail race.
- Impression: A baby trying its first lemon.
- Song: Sing Happy Birthday like an opera singer.
- Song: Sing a nursery rhyme as fast as you can.
- Song: Sing a line from any song while whispering.
- Song: Make up a song about pizza.
- Physical Challenge: Hop like a frog around the room.
- Physical Challenge: Balance on one foot for 15 seconds.
- Physical Challenge: Do 5 star jumps while saying the alphabet.
- Physical Challenge: Walk like a penguin to the door and back.
- Question: What is your favorite thing about today?
- Question: Which animal would you like as a best friend?
- Question: If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
- Question: What's the funniest thing that ever happened to you?
Questions and answers
How do I make a challenge wheel for a party?
Draw a circle on poster board, split it into 6 sections, and fix a paper arrow in the middle with a split pin. Or use any free spinner app.
What challenges work for young kids?
Short, safe and silly ones: hop like a frog, roar like a lion, make a funny face, or name three red things.