If you’ve got a parachute gathering dust in your kit cupboard, now is the time to drag it out. Parachute games are one of those rare activities that work brilliantly across sections, require almost no prep, and have scouts begging to play them again and again. Here are five of my favourites, including the one my scouts pester me for every single time we get the parachute out.

Cat and Mouse

You’ll need two volunteers for this one. One scout is the cat, one is the mouse. The mouse crawls underneath the parachute while everyone else waves it up and down to create ripples. The cat then climbs on top and has to track and catch the mouse through all those waves.

It sounds simple, but those ripples make it genuinely tricky for the cat to spot where the mouse is hiding underneath. That’s the whole point, and it’s brilliant fun to watch.

One thing to flag: this game can drag on a bit if the cat is struggling to find the mouse. Being on your hands and knees under a parachute is also fairly hard work. I’d recommend setting a one-minute time limit, and if the mouse hasn’t been caught by then, swap players over.

The Mushroom

This one doubles up as an icebreaker and a game all in one, and I’ve seen it played at birthday parties and school events as well as at scouts. It’s a genuine crowd-pleaser.

Everyone stands around the edge of the parachute. On the count of three, you all lift it together and run underneath, tucking the edge behind you so the parachute billows up into a giant mushroom shape above your heads. It looks spectacular, especially the first time you do it with a new group, and there’s something genuinely magical about standing underneath it as it slowly floats back down.

But here’s where the game comes in. Before you lift, you announce a category. Something like: “Swap if you’re wearing glasses.” The parachute goes up, and anyone wearing glasses lets go, runs across to swap places with someone else who’s also swapping, and grabs a new spot before it comes back down.

The categories are the fun bit. Swap if you’ve got a younger sibling. Swap if you walked here tonight. Swap if you don’t like pizza. (Nobody ever swaps for that last one, and rightly so.) You can let the scouts take turns coming up with categories, which works really well, though I’d suggest warning them in advance so they’ve got something ready. A parachute falling on a scout who’s gone blank mid-thought is less fun than it sounds.

Volleyball

Split your group into two teams, one on each side of the parachute. Drop a ball into the middle and the aim is to bounce it up and send it flying over to the other team’s side so that it hits the floor. No hands on the ball, only the parachute.

For the ball itself, an indoor foam ball works perfectly. A leather football does not. Trust me on this. If you really want to see your scouts light up though, get yourself one of those enormous inflatable balls. The kind you find at a pound shop or a random discount shop like mine down the road. Combined with a parachute, it’s absolute chaos in the best possible way.

Popcorn

Grab a big bag of those small plastic balls, the kind you find in soft play areas or used for Hungry Hippos. You want roughly twenty or so, though there’s no strict number. Throw them all into the middle of the parachute, then everyone starts flicking and waving the parachute as fast as they can. The aim is to pop every single ball off the edge of the parachute.

You can run it as a race against the clock, split into patrols and see who can clear their half fastest, or just go all in together and see how quickly the group can do it as a team. It’s loud, it’s fast, and it looks exactly like a giant bowl of popcorn. Scouts absolutely love it.

Shark Attack

Right, here it is. This is the one. Every single time I bring out the parachute, before I’ve even unrolled it, I’ve got scouts asking me if we’re going to play Shark Attack. It is genuinely their all-time favourite.

Everyone sits down around the edge of the parachute with their legs extended underneath it. They hold the edge in their laps and keep flapping to create waves. Three or four scouts volunteer to be the sharks and go under the parachute. The sharks then have to crawl around under the waves and grab hold of a sitting scout, pulling them down underneath. Once you’ve been pulled under, you become a shark yourself.

The variation we play at our group, and I’m honestly not sure if it’s an official rule or something we’ve made up along the way, is the lifeguard rule. If a scout is being grabbed by a shark, they can shout “Lifeguard!” Any sitting scout can then drop the parachute, rush over, and try to heave them back out to safety.

One important note on risk assessment: this game gets exciting very quickly, and what starts as a gentle tug can turn into a proper heave before you know it. Make sure you brief the scouts clearly before you start, gentle pulls only, and have Scout Leaders positioned around the group to keep an eye on things. It’s a brilliant game but it does need a bit of supervision to keep it from getting too boisterous.

So there you have it. Five parachute games that genuinely work, tested on real scouts who’ve voted with their enthusiasm. Do you have a parachute game that your section loves? Drop it in the comments below, I’m always looking to add new ones to the rotation.

And if you’re after more game ideas to keep your meetings fresh, have a look through the other posts on Big Man in the Woods. There’s plenty to keep you going.