Fun Kwanzaa Games

Adding some Kwanzaa games to your festivities is a fun way to get everyone involved in the holiday. You won't need much beyond your basic Kwanzaa supplies, and everyone will have a good time. These activities are good for reinforcing the themes of Kwanzaa and creating some fun memories with your family. Some of these games may even become beloved family traditions.

Swahili Number Race
Learning to count in Swahili is a fun activity, and this game will help you memorize those number names. This is a race to see who can count to ten the fastest. If it gets too easy, have a race to count backward, or by twos! Start by teaching the numbers, by having everyone repeat them until they are familiar. You can start with one through five if you want to make learning easier at first, and in no time you'll be able to add the last five. Here are the numbers in Swahili:

• 1: Moja
• 2: Wili
• 3: Tatu
• 4: Nne
• 5: Tano
• 6: Sita
• 7: Saba
• 8: Nane
• 9: Tisa
• 10: Kumi

Fun with the Seven Principles
The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. Start by reviewing each one, so everyone knows them and knows how to say them. Write each principle on two small pieces of paper, so each is written twice. Place the slips of paper in a bowl. Then have all players write a funny word on a small piece of paper, until there are 14 words. Put the funny words into a separate bowl or hat.

To play, a player picks one word from each hat, combining a principle with a funny word. The player needs to use both in the same sentence, and it has to make sense! Things get fun as the players try to incorporate the funny word with the principle. Funny words could be words such as pickle, termite, googly-eyes, swizzle, frizzy and salamander, for example. A player who chooses "Unity" and "termite" will have to create a sentence containing both words.

Kwanzaa Tic Tac Toe
Make a large grid on a piece of paper or poster board. Use more squares than a regular tic tac toe board to allow more people to play. Players choose a symbol of Kwanzaa to represent them, and each player takes a turn to draw their symbol in a square. Players try to get 3 symbols in a row before the other players do. Whoever succeeds first wins the game.