New York Lemonade Game

This crowd pleaser is sure to be sweet fun.

What You Need

Instructions

Make two "safety" lines about 6 or 7 yards apart, marked off with stones or whatever you have handy.
The players divide into two equal-sized teams and stand at their team's line.
One team must decide on an occupation to pantomime.
After choosing how they will act out their trade, the whole team advances slowly toward the second team and starts the following bizarre dialogue, one that clearly came from the mind of some long-ago child. Team 1: Here we come.
Team 2: Where from?
Team 1: New York.
Team 2: What's your trade?
Team 1: Lemonade.
Team 2: Give us some!
The first team then sidles as close as it dares to the second team, which is still on its safety line and can't move yet.
The first team begins to act out its agreed-upon trade, with no words allowed. The second team shouts out its guesses.
When someone gets it right, the first team turns and flees back toward its safety line, and the second team gives chase, trying to tag the other players before they reach safety.
All who are tagged become prisoners of war and must join the opposing team. Then the second team chooses a trade among themselves, and the game is repeated. Establish up front a number of turns for each team; at the end of the last "inning," the team with the most players wins.

Variations:: If younger kids are stumped on occupations, a grown-up can help supply a few suggestions (such as ballet dancer, baseball player, farmer, firefighter, furniture mover, doctor, carpenter, shepherd, or bus driver). Please note, though, this game definitely predates the service economy. Do not attempt to act out the following trades: insurance claims adjuster, HMO administrator, merger and acquisitions consultant, or systems analyst. I have found that even adults with these jobs have a hard time acting out what they do all day.

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