*There was a man:
Children walk around in a circle hanging onto the parachute
     
      There was a man in our town
      Who went for a WALK one day
      But the wind blew so hard
      He turned around 
      And WALKED the other way
 
 Different actions, such as run, hop, skip, etc. may replace walk.
 

*Cat and Mouse:
One child under the parachute is mouse. 
One child gets on top of parachute and is cat.
Other children squat and shake parachute so the ripples hide the movement of the mouse.  

*Lets see I have played weather parachute we start calm sitting on the floor and its a 
gentle breeze then rain and move up to a thunder storm with everyone standing up holding 
handles shaking as hard as they can to make thunder....
 
*We also play "drop the ball" place a soft ball of any size in the center and you have to 
try to keep the ball from falling off on your side....they love this one

*we put it in the air and run under and see if we can all fit and close it behind us 
then fluff it again and run out before it falls.....

*put the ball on top and throw it in the air and try to catch it...

*A toddler-gym class that my dd was once in used a parachute for one of their activities.  
There were about 15 to 20 kids, plus the parents in the class though, so I don''t know 
if this is do-able for you or not. 
Everyone stood around the parachute holding the edges, and in the center were dozens of 
lightweight and colorful things like nerf balls, and balls made out of yarn, etc. And 
everyone just grabbed the edges and "threw" the parachute up in the air (Not letting go 
of the edges) and watched the balls fly up and down. It was good exercise for the arms, 
plus the kids liked watching all the things fly up and down. And they also just rippled 
the edges and watched the balls bounce around.

* Found these basic instructions in my files:
 P.S.  If you don't have a parachute, an old sheet will work just fine
 
 What to do:
 
 1.  Lay the parachute out flat.  Gather around it.
 2.  Have each person hold the edge of the parachute. Stand up, kneel, down,
 raise your hands together, lower them together.
 3.  Try many different games with your parachute.  Some ideas are:
     *  Make mountains, valleys, waves
     *  Make a popcorn popper by throwing yarn pom-poms, foam balls, or ping
 pong        balls in the middle
     *   Make a dome to sit under by bring the parachute down behind your
 backs
     *   Raise arms together and let go
     *   In the summer, go outside and use water balloons!
 
 Talk about it
 What other things can you imagine with your parachute?
 How does it work?  What keeps the parachute up?  Does it work better with  
more or fewer people?  What happens when you all do the same thing at the  
same time?  How is it different when you do different things?
 
 From:  Peace Works, Young Peacemakers Project Book II
 By:  Kathleen Fry-Miller, Judith Myers-Walls, and Janet Domer-Shank 

*This book is called
 Parachute Play for Indoor/Outdoor Fun  by Liz & Dick Wilmes, Art by
 Jeane Healy
 
 UP AND DOWN
 
 Suggested Units: Opposits
 Additional Equipment: None
 Directions:
 Have the children stand and hold the chute using the Thumbs-Down grip.
 Reinforce opposit words through a variety of movements:
 UP-DOWN  Slowly raise the chute in an upward motion.  Ash them chant
 "Up, up, up, up."  Then lower it.  As they do that, chant "Down, down,
 down, down."  Another one you can to is Higher, higher, higher, higher,
 or Lower, lower, lower, lower
 
 Fast-Slow - Loud-Quiet (have the children flip-flop the parachute fast
 enough so it creates a noise) - In- Out, Over-Under
 

*We always start our games with the parachute laying stretched out 
on the ground. Then we go waist level then over our heads.  We make 
sure we roll the edge of the part of the parachute we'll be holding a 
few times for better grip and for saving on wear and tear..

Mushroom...

Everyone has the parachute stretched out (of course in a circle)
waist high...Then we lift it quickly upward and pull it back down as 
quick then we *scrunch*  down forward on our knees between each hand 
(while still holding the edges of course) and the parachute mushrooms 
from the middle.


Popcorn......

Again starting from the ground with the parachute...We lift it up 
waist high and someone throws a bunch of wadded up paper into the 
middle (of course have the paper ready ahead of time....the more 
paper you have wadded up the more *popcorn*  you pop) 
You lift the parachute up and down (the faster the better) 
The object of the game is to try and pop the popcorn off the chute..


Thunder...

We would ask the kids:
"Want to hear what thunder sounds like?"
For this game we put one or two kids in the middle under the chute 
while chute is waist high and then we got down on our knees and 
lifted the chute up and down on top of the kids in the middle.
The object of this one, of course, is for the kids in the middle to 
hear what thunder sounds like.

We also play a game of teams where each half of the people holding 
the parachute has a ball with a number on it.  Then someone 
throws each of the 2 balls into the middle when the chute is waist 
high and then pull the chute up and down.  
The object of the game is to knock the other's team's 
ball off to win.  You knock off your own ball you lose.