We tried this game at Ignite last week as part of our Challenge Night. I first heard about it on the source for youth ministry podcast and thought it could be a lot of fun! The premise is that someone has to spell out a word to their teammates simply by wiggling their derrière in the shape of the letters until the word is guessed. Here are the original instructions:

Cut up slips of paper with words on them and put them into a bag. Break up your audience or group into two teams. Get a volunteer from each team to spell the word he/she took out of the bag by moving their hips (spelling the words with thier butts!). (Make sure they do not say a word to give away clues.) If their team (or their side of the audience) does not figure out the word after two spellings, the other team gets to guess. Make it interesting by the words you choose, try to keep it clean. We don’t want any dirty butts!

We played it slightly differently from the instructions by running it more like a speedPictionary competition. We had four teams competing at the same time in order to be the first to have spelt a list of ten words that got progressively harder. This enabled the game to last a little longer, involved everyone in the room and gave it a more competitive edge. Those who weren’t confident in waving their backside could simply guess the letters with everyone else so there was no pressure on anyone.

It was absolutely hilarious to watch as the teens jumped, shuffled, clenched and wobbled their bums to spell out things like apple and it’s certainly a game we’ll use again! If you’re looking for Butt Charades on The Source site, it can be found under Audience Games.