Inside: Ideas for DIY dance charades cards that will get you grooving.
I don’t know about you, but I love to dance. It’s fun, freeing, and good for your heart. I also love teenager party games, specifically group games the whole family can play. Like the classic ones that we’ve been playing since we were young. So naturally, it shouldn’t be surprising that one of my all-time favorite games is dance charades.
What’s that? You’ve never heard of this game you say? Well all that is changing, because you are missing out.
It combines two of the best things in the world, and it brings people together in hilarious ways.
So if you are interested in learning about what this game is, and how to play it, then you are in the right place. Not only am I going to cover those topics but to make your life easier, I am also going to include a list of topics and ideas for you to DIY your own charades cards at home. It can be stupidly hard to come up with on the spot, so I thought I would save you the trouble.
So let’s hop, step, and jump right into this.
Table of Contents
What is Dance Charades
Dance charades is pretty straightforward. It’s in the name! The objective of this game is to be the player with the most points at the end of the rounds. In order to get points you must dance act what is on the charades cards, if the players aka judges like your move, they will throw a token into the dance floor.
At the end of your turn, you get to count the tokens and that is how many points you have for the round. So let’s go over some of the rules and what it looks like to play this game.
How to Play Dance Charades
Dance charades is both simple and complex at the same time. It’s the game equivalent of rubbing your stomach while patting your head. On the outside, objectively it sounds super easy and doable, but once you try it you’ll find that it requires some practice.
I am going to break it down into steps so that it’s easy to digest.
Supplies
- Charades Cards
- Bowl
- Music
- Timer
- Tokens
Step One
The first step is to write down all of the ideas and subjects on small cards. When you are done you mix them up and place them in a bowl to be pulled from when the game begins. To get ideas for the subjects and topics, please keep scrolling.
You will find my list of different words that can act as the basis for your charades list. I’ve gone ahead and divided them into different categories, ranging from easiest to hardest. Pick whichever ones you like. Once you are done with this, you can move on to the next step.
Step Two
Everyone needs to decide on how many rounds they want to play. Pass your tokens out to everyone who will be playing, and decide who will be the first to dance. You will also need to decide on who will be your DJ. After the initial person goes, the circle will move in one direction.
Step Three
When you feel prepared, draw a card. The music will start to play and you will have 1 minute to try and mime out what is on the card through dancing. This is where it differs from regular charades. Sometimes I have found that this makes it even simpler, like if you pull the word sprinkler. There is a pretty well-known dance for that.
But it can also be hard, for example, how are you going to dance mime out the word ‘singing’. Sounds rough right?
Step Four
You are not allowed to speak in any way at all, and that includes mouthing words. I am the queen of the accidental lip sync. My brain just wants to convey the word so badly that I’ll absentmindedly start to mouth the words before I even realize what I am doing. So try and avoid that.
It’s up to your fellow teammates to try and guess what it is you are trying to get across on your own. If someone is able to guess what you dancing then you get a point and get to pick another card. This continues until the timer goes off. The cards you got will be your points.
Players are also allowed to toss tokens into the ring if they thought their dance moves were awesome enough, and those will also count as points. But they are only allotted 3 tokens to throw.
Step Five
After you have finished all of your agreed-upon rounds, it’s time to tally up the points. The person with the highest amount is deemed the winner. They get a prize of choice and a song of their choosing as their celebratory song.
So, does this sound interesting to you? If so, then take a look at my list of words that you can use for your charade ideas. There is a lot here so I recommend going slow otherwise your risk a hand cramp…and those are terrible.
Categories for Dance Charades
1. Animals
2. Sports
3. Activities
4. Jobs
5. Movies
6. Food
7. Songs
8. Instruments
9. Famous People
10. Emotions
Easy Dance Charades Ideas
11. Sad
12. Laughing
13. Mowing the lawn
14. Cutting Hair
15. Texting
16. Cat
17. Soccer
18. Flute
19. Typing
20. Jump Rope
21. Singing
22. Light
23. T-Rex
24. Phone Call
25. Bird
Medium Dance Charades Ideas
26. Frying Pan
27. Tacos
28. Teacher
29. Eagle
30. Reading a Book
31. Moana
32. Disco
33. Spiderman
34. Surfing
35. Football
36. Cat In The Hand
37. The Little Mermaid
38. Baby Shark
39. Shoe Laces
40. President
41. Saxophone
42. Birthday Cake
43. Lizard
44. Shock
45. Hot N Cold – Katy Perry
46. Tennis
47. Murder
48. Leonardo DiCaprio
49. Bull
Hard Dance Charades Ideas
50. Porcupine
51. Little Orphan Annie
52. Fixer Upper
53. Albert Einstein
54. Drummer
55. Don’t Worry Be Happy – Bob Marley
56. Mr. Rodgers
57. Hair Spray
58. Chandler Bing
59. Forest Gump
60. Scooby-Doo
61. Chopping Vegetables
62. Michael Jackson
63. Blush
Does your hand hurt from writing all of these out onto cards yet? Because mind totally does. It started way back around the 20s. But I know that playing this game will make it all well worth it, for the laughs alone.
I hope that you found these words helpful because I know how hard it can be to come up with topics for charades. It’s like all of the words you’ve ever known just fall right out of your head the minute you need them. It can be so infuriating. But that’s why I’m here, to help you avoid that feeling.
If you are a fan of charades in general and not just the dance kind, then you have so many other ways that you can use these cards. That way you don’t have to feel like they are wasted when you’re done with this game. It’s cool to think that dance charades are just one version of charades, and there are countless other ways to play them.
The gaming possibilities are endless!