For games and parties

Animal charades that work for any age

One player acts out an animal without speaking, and the others guess it. The whole game needs one list of animals and a timer. What it really needs is a rule for the animals nobody can act, which is the part most people improvise badly at the worst moment.

Published 19 September 2026. Last updated 29 September 2026.

Rules

1. Split the players into two teams.
2. Generate one animal for each player, with no-repeats on.
3. Give each player their animal privately. Do not show the list.
4. Set a timer. One minute suits most groups.
5. The actor uses movement and sound only.
6. No words, no spelling, no pointing at a picture.
7. A correct guess in time scores one point for the actor’s team.
8. If the timer runs out, the other team gets one guess for a bonus point.
9. Play until every player has acted once. The highest score wins.

Adjusting for age

• Ages 4 to 6

  Use the Mammals and Birds groups only, and allow animal sounds. Drop the timer. Let the whole room guess together rather than in teams.

• Ages 7 to 11

  Use all groups and a 60 second timer. Sounds allowed. This is the age where Invertebrates and Fish start being funny rather than frustrating.

• Ages 12 and up

  All groups, 45 second timer, no sounds at all. Movement only makes the hard animals genuinely hard.

The animals nobody can act

Some animals cannot be done with a body. A coelacanth and a ringed caecilian both come out as wiggling on the floor. Pick your rule before the game starts, because arguing about it mid-round ruins the timer.

• Pass and redraw. The player may pass once and take one more animal. Simple, and best with young children.
• Give the group. The actor may say the group out loud, such as Fish, then act. Keeps the round moving without a free pass.
• Keep it hard. No passes. Best for adults, and the reason 45 seconds is enough.

A ready round of 12

Cut this up and hand one animal to each player. It came out of the generator on this site, so you can make a different one whenever you like.

1. 1orcaMammals
2. 2great egretBirds
3. 3black mambaReptiles
4. 4stonefishFish
5. 5jumping spiderInvertebrates
6. 6tigerMammals
7. 7humpback anglerfishFish
8. 8red-eyed tree frogAmphibians
9. 9blue whaleMammals
10. 10ochre sea starInvertebrates
11. 11Tasmanian devilMammals
12. 12basilisk lizardReptiles

Generate your own round

Two variants worth playing

• Group relay. Generate one group only, such as Birds, and give every player a different bird. Much harder, because having wings stops being a useful clue.
• Chain charades. The guesser becomes the next actor immediately, using the next animal on the list. Fast, and it suits a group of six or fewer.

Group relay only works if the players know what the group means, and the six labels are less obvious than they look. The six animal groups, in plain words gives each one in a sentence and names the animals in this catalog that break its rule, which is where the arguments start.

Step two of the rules above is the whole game in one line: one animal per player, and no two the same. One animal per child, and why that matters explains what to do when there are more players than animals in the group you picked.