Mexican Police Officer

Original Source : Shelagh Walsh, Canada


One person is the traffic police officer. The players divide into teams.

Each PERSON gets 3 dried beans (if the teams are unequal numbers, you could give each team 9 beans, so 2 people would have 4 & 5 beans, 3 people would have 3 beans each.)

Everyone except the traffic police officer are vehicles, cars, buses, trucks, maybe even helicopters or donkey carts. They mill around being vehicles until the traffic police officer holds up her hand "stop." All vehicles freeze, anyone caught moving has to pay a fine of a bean.

At the end (5 minute time limit?) the team with the most beans wins. After playing this a few times last night, it was decided the traffic police officer would actually yell the Spanish word for "stop" (which is alto) because people might be looking the other way. It is difficult to be a good vehicle & watch the traffic police officer all the time.

We like this, because even if you are lousy at it & lose all your beans, the rest of your team might still have theirs, & you might still win!

Simple, practically free (dried beans are cheap), a Mexican children's game, & lots of fun for all ages.