Giant Pick Up Sticks

An active simulation game for large groups


How To Play Giant Pick Up Sticks

Materials Needed

a whole bunch of different coloured giant sticks

So you've all heard of pick-up sticks right? The game where you get a pile of multi-coloured sticks all mixed up and each player takes it in turn to pick up a stick without touching or moving any of the other sticks. If they pick it up successfully and cleany (without moving anything else) - they get some points (depending on the colour) and get to attempt to pick up another stick.

My idea for this group game is to do a giant version of it. It's possible to buy pre-prepared giant versions of this game (See here) but it could be a fun idea to make your own set. You'll probably just need a bunch of cheap dahl wood or plastic sticks and some coloured paint. A typical pick up sticks set contains 50 sticks.

You'll need to make a scoring system for this outdoor group game also. Could be something like this:

Red 5
Blue 4
Yellow 3
Green 2
White 1

Often players are allowed to use a "tool" to help them pick up a stick. This could be just another stick (coloured black) or something else.

JACK STRAWS VARIATION
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A similar game to pick-up sticks, called "Jack Straws", could also be played in this "giant mode". Jack Straws is played in the same format but has a collection of real life objects to pick up (like crutches, brooms, rakes, canes - anything that's long... see here) Wouldn't it be cool to get a collection of rakes, brooms, shovels and other random objects of a similar size and play Giant Jack Straws?!

Jack Straws gives each player a stick with a hook on the end to use to help them pull out an object without moving anything else. Again, different objects are worth different amounts of points.

Variants

Added by
Joel
on 24 November 2010


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