Nerf War Activities

Type: Active
Age: Middle school
Optimal size: 20+
Estimated cost: $51 - $100
Planning time: 2-5 hours
Frequency: One-time

Learning outcomes

• Connect and collaborate with others
• Demonstrate an openness to risk-taking
• Display an ability to communicate with others
• Experiment, prototype and test ideas
• Innovate
• Maintain a positive attitude
• Show perseverance and work well under pressure
• Think flexibly
• Use materials and tools for developmental, educational, and recreational need

Instructions

Our library hosted two Nerf wars, one for tweens and one for teens, this summer, challenging kids to demonstrate determination, teamwork, innovation, and good sportsmanship as they took on their competition.

 Supplies:

• 15+ Cardboard boxes of varying sizes. (We saved boxes from around the library.)
• 6+ Nerf Guns (We used the N-Strike Elite Disruptors that each come with 6 bullets.)
• Chairs
• Nerf bullets (We used what came with the Nerf guns purchased and any bullets remaining from Nerf programs in several years past.)
• Tables
• Tape
• Tear-away flag football flag

Activity 1: Dueling

• Participants stood an equal distance apart. On start, they draw and loaded their weapon in an effort to hit their opponent the quickest. The person that was hit first was out.
• We played tournament style with each participant having the chance to play individually. The winner of each duel would advance to the next round. There were several rounds depending upon the number of participants, continuing until all but one tween/teen was eliminated.

Activity 2: Zombie Capture the Flag

• Participants were broken into two groups. One group played as the humans, and one group played as the zombies.
• Humans: Each human player was armed with a Nerf gun, 6 bullets, and a tear-away flag. Their objective was to play defensively and avoid their zombie enemies. Humans could shoot their Nerf guns, hide, walk, crawl, or move any way necessary. Their only limitation was that they could not run.
• Zombies: The zombies did not have any supplies. Their objective was to take the human team members' flags which symbolized a human turning into a zombie.
• The last remaining human won the game.
• We played twice to allow the tweens and teens to play the opposite role as a zombie or human.

Activity 3: Construct and Defend a Fortress

• Participants were broken into three equal teams. Each team was given boxes, tape, a table, and three flags.
• Ten minutes were allotted for teams to construct a fortress to defend and place their flags in visible but hard to access places.
• The object was for opposing teams to steal their opponent’s flags while retaining their own.
• The last team with a flag was the winner.

Evaluation

Both sessions of the Nerf war were successful. The tween session had a higher turnout than the teen program, given that the age range for the tween program was a little more flexible to include older elementary aged children who attended.

Learning Outcomes:

While we had several Nerf guns, we knew there would not be enough for each participant to have their own during the games, so we made sure to place emphasis on sharing by incorporating games like Capture the Flag in which not all players needed a Nerf gun to participate. This also left room for the tweens and teens to foster teamwork among group members, especially in the last activity to construct and defend a fortress. Working together toward a common goal, the teens naturally delegated roles and tasks with some demonstrating great leadership skills. 

Strategy and innovation were also key to these activities. Given identical materials as their opponent, each group had to think wisely about how they constructed their fort and where they placed their flags. It was not enough to simply build a structure. They had to build a fortress that could be defended while also taking on their opponent. To do this, they had to formulate a plan, communicate, and collaborate with others, including accepting criticism of their ideas.

Improvements and Suggestions: 

Some of our teen participants cleverly used extra boxes as armor for this program, and should we do this program again, it would be fun to add that step into the process if time allowed and enough boxes were collected.