“I’m sitting in my backyard and wishing for […] to sit next to me.”
This simple sentence sums up the gist of the game, which I will explain to you in the following paragraphs. The game is all about fun, speed, and testing if you know the names of the other players.

What do you need?
“I’m sitting…” belongs to the kind of circle games for which you don’t need a lot of equipment and which can be played almost anywhere. The most important thing required for this game are some fellow players. It is more fun to play it with a slightly bigger group of at least three players. I would recommend playing with at least ten players, although it also works with less. The last requirement is chairs. You need the same number of chairs as there are players, plus an additional chair. If you do not have access to chairs, it also works to play the game on the ground without chairs.

How to play?
You start by forming a circle. Each player has to have his or her own chair to sit on; the additional chair has to be left empty. It is important that all of the chairs are set up as closely as possible to each other, which means that there should be no gap between chairs.
Once the circle is formed and every player is seated in a chair, the game can begin.
The player who is sitting to the left of the empty chair starts the game. He or she has to move to this empty chair and sit on it. While changing seats, this person has to say “I’m sitting…”. The player who now has the empty chair to their right also moves to this empty chair and continues the sentence with the words “…in my backyard…”. Finally, the next person in line (the one that is sitting to the left of the empty chair) changes seats, moves to the empty chair, and says, “… and wishing for […] to sit next to me.” The brackets have to be substituted with the name of another player. The player whose name was called has to stand up, leave his seat, and sit next to the person who wished for them to sit there. Once this player left their seat, the neighboring players, the ones that are sitting left and right of the now empty chair, have to “fight” for the seat. Whoever sits on the chair first becomes the new person to begin the next round by saying “I’m sitting…”.
The same steps are then repeated round after round: when the player who “won” the chair finishes saying “I’m sitting…”, the next player moves to his or her right onto the empty chair and says “… in my backyard…”. The next player follows right after, moves to the empty chair, and wishes for another player to sit next to them.
The game then goes on like this until the players do not want to play anymore.

I hope you enjoy this game and have fun playing!