Bob-A-Needle

Formation: Students stand in a circle close enough to touch shoulders with hands behind backs. One student, “It” is in the center of the circle.

As students sing, the teacher (or another student) walks around outside the circle and stealthily puts an object* in the hands of one student. The students pass the object without “It” seeing. On the first “Bob-a-needle ain’t a-runnin,'” one student holds on to the object. On the first “you got a…,” “It” sings and points to one student in the circle. If that student does not have the object, that student shakes the head “no.” “It” sings “you got it” again and points to a different student. This happens up to three times if the guesses were wrong. Then, a different “It” is chosen and the game starts again.

*Different option: A large string could be put around the circle of students, and the object could be a key hanging from the string. The key is passed along the string to each student.