Boys Activity

I help teach a co-op every other week to a bunch of wonderful boys ages 8-12. Our co-op has the boys read about real heroes throughout history. This month they read about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a great man and was involved in trying to assassinate Hitler. I got to lead a 30 minute activity that went along with the book. I chose to have the boys go do "spy training". It was a lot of fun, so I thought I would share what we did. I think this could be fun for a birthday party, scouts or just any get together.

First, you MUST have a spy name if you are going to be a spy. I had two jars, one with adjectives and the other with nouns. Each boy came up one at a time and chose their name. We had some great ones like, White Bear, Master Fox, Red Dragon, Quick Cobra and so on. I had labels so that I could write their name down and the boys could wear their new name.

Second, they had to show how smart they were. I had several small items on a tray and quickly showed it to all the boys. I would then remove an item and they would have to try to figure out what is missing. We did three rounds of this.

Next, we had to pass off the physical test. We ran around the park, through the trees, over park benches, it was fun. Some of the boys had the audacity to think they could run faster than me, silly boys, I had to show them I was still faster :). Then we did push ups, sit ups and squats.

Then, I tied up yarn under a picnic table. The boys each took turns trying to pass through the table without touching the yarn. Once they made it through I had Sheriff stickers that they were awarded for completing spy training. A few of the boys actually made it through without touching any yarn, they were given a special badge.

Finally, the best part. We had a war with marshmallow grenades!! I separated the boys into two teams and gave them each a couple of bags of marshmallows. If you were hit one time, you couldn't use an arm, two hits, you had to walk with a limp and three hits, you're dead.