Tag: fun

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Competitive games to promote collaboration and teamwork

Competition is seen by some people in education, youth work and team building as a dirty word, but it definitely has its uses. With many groups and individuals it is a great motivating factor and can help you break down some people’s reluctance to join in. As long as you don’t dwell on the winners and losers and instead try to pull out the learning it can be very effective.

Many of the games I posted previously can also be used in this way if you just split the group into two or more teams, but these I feel work especially well with a competitive element.

Remember to get the most out of all of these activities …

Before the activity

  • Explain the rules as simply as possible.
  • Don’t give tips on how to complete the task.
  • Don’t explain what you want them to get out of it.

During the activity

  • Unless a judge is needed, you should take full part in the activity.
  • If everyone is struggling, pause the game and ask people what is going wrong; ask them what they could do to change it.
  • Stop the games while people are still excited, don’t wait for them to start dragging.

After the activity

  • Don’t make a big deal out of winners and losers – a quick cheer or round of applause is enough.
  • Draw out the learning through asking them to reflect on the activity, don’t tell them what you think the learning should be.
    • Ask those who succeeded: What worked well in your team? What did you do that allowed you to succeed?
    • Ask those who struggled: What would you differently next time?
    • Ask those who struggled but managed in the end: What do you change? Why? Did that work?
    • Finally, ask them what they learned through the activity – they may well come up with far more than you intended!

Shark infested water

Useful for

Co-ordination; helping each other out; playing to strengths; talking to one another; lateral thinking.

Method

  1. Split the groups into teams of at least 4.
  2. Give each team fewer pieces of paper than there are people (make it harder by giving fewer pieces of paper).
  3. Explain that this room is actually shark infested water. The paper is little moveable islands.
  4. They have to get their whole team from one side of the room to the other before the other team.
  5. If anyone steps in the water they have to start again.

Resources

  • Pieces of paper just big enough for two people to stand on
  • You can use chairs instead of paper, but be careful

Move the cups

Useful for

Co-ordination; taking things slowly; talking to one another; lateral thinking.

Method

  1. Place the hula hoops on the ground.
  2. Place three cups in the centre of each hula hoop.
  3. Place one elastic band/string contraption with each hula hoop.
  4. Split the groups into teams of three.
  5. Send each team to one of the hula hoops.
  6. Explain the rules:
    • Their hands can’t go into the hula hoop.
    • They can’t touch the cups.
    • They can only hold one piece of string each.
  7. Explain that they have to lift the three cups out of the hoop and stack them in a pyramid (two next to each other and one balancing on top).

Resources

  • Hula hoops
  • Plastic cups
  • Elastic bands with three pieces of 50cm long string tied to them.

See, run, do

Useful for

Communication; seeing things from others’ perspective; importance of everyone playing their role well.

Method

  1. Split the groups into teams of three.
  2. Get the teams to decide on one of them to be a ‘Seer’, one to be a ‘Runner’ and the other a ‘Doer’.
  3. Send all the ‘Doers’ to one end of the room and tell them each to grab a pen and piece of paper. They cannot move from there.
  4. Send all the ‘Seers’ to the other end of the room. They cannot move from there.
  5. The ‘Runners’ can go anywhere, but they can’t touch the pen or paper and they can’t see the picture.
  6. You are going to show a picture to the ‘Seer’.
  7. They have to get a copy of that picture across the room.
  8. After they’ve had a few minutes get them to stop and compare the picture to your original. Choose the one that’s most like a photocopy of your image. Concentrate on details like size, orientation, neatness, what’s coloured in, etc.
  9. Ask them what went well and what they could have done differently or better.
  10. Get them to stay in the same groups, but change roles.
  11. Repeat and then change roles one last time.
  12. Ask them which role was the hardest and which was most important.

Variation (without the ‘Runners’)

  • Try in pairs, with people sitting back to back – the one has to explain the picture to the other, who can’t see it.
  • In the first round show the picture very briefly.
  • In the second, give the ‘Seer’ the picture to study whilst she explains it.
  • In the third round allow the ‘Seer’ to see and comment on what the ‘Doer’ is drawing, but don’t allow the ‘Doer’ to see the original picture.

Resources

  • Blank paper
  • Pens
  • 3 simple pictures
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involver blog Resources

Games to promote teamwork, co-ordination, co-operation and concentration

The game was called 'Finding Nemo'. Basically everyone had to wonder around with their eyes closed calling 'Nemo' until they bumped into someone who wasn't calling out. They then had to stop and be quiet - they have found Nemo. Eventually everyone is still and quiet.

Yesterday I gave you some icebreakers to use with your school council, today I’ve got a group of team-building games for you to try. There are competitive games here: competitive games for team-building.

Remember to get the most out of all of these activities …

Before the activity

  • Explain the rules as simply as possible.
  • Don’t give tips on how to complete the task.
  • Don’t explain what you want them to get out of it.

During the activity

  • Unless a judge is needed, you should take full part in the activity.
  • If everyone is struggling, pause the game and ask people what is going wrong; ask them what they could do to change it.
  • Stop the games while people are still excited, don’t wait for them to start dragging.

After the activity

  • Don’t make a big deal out of winners and losers – a quick cheer or round of applause is enough.
  • Draw out the learning through asking them to reflect on the activity, don’t tell them what you think the learning should be.
    • Ask those who succeeded: What worked well in your team? What did you do that allowed you to succeed?
    • Ask those who struggled: What would you differently next time?
    • Ask those who struggled but managed in the end: What do you change? Why? Did that work?
    • Finally, ask them what they learned through the activity – they may well come up with far more than you intended!

Group juggling

Useful for

Learning names; Concentration; Focus on your task; Let people know what you’re doing; Stick to the agreed format.

Method

  1. Keep all balls hidden until needed.
  2. Throw a green ball round the circle, each person only getting it once.
  3. Remember the order and repeat in that order, adding in extra green balls as confidence grows, until all three are going round
    the circle.
  4. Explain that red balls go along the same route, but in the opposite direction.
  5. Discuss what needs to happen to make this work well.
  6. See if you can get 3 green balls and 3 red balls all going at once. When it’s working reasonably well, throw in some extra balls
    in a random order.
  7. Discuss what happened.

Resources

  • Space for everyone to stand in a circle.
  • In a bag:
    • 3 x Green balls
    • 3 x Red balls
    • Some other coloured balls

Group counting

Useful for

  • We all know where we’re going, but if we’re not careful we can’t get there.
  • Taking it in turns can help.
  • Did everyone get a chance to take part? Did some people dominate?
  • Using body language and non-verbal signals.
  • Having a chair person, especially one who directs rather than speaking.

Method

  1. Explain the rules to everyone:
    • As a group we need to count to 10.
    • No one person can say 2 numbers in a row (e.g. 2 and 3).
    • No one can say anything other than the numbers.
    • If 2 people speak at once we start again.
  2. As people find they can’t do it ask people to suggest rules.
  3. Try these out one by one and see which work.

Resources

  • None

Helium stick / lower the stick

Useful for

Co-ordination; all working at the same pace; talking to one another; lateral thinking.

Method

  1. Split the group into two. Get each group to stand in a line facing the other group.
  2. Get everyone to point out a finger.
  3. Place the stick so that it is resting on everyone’s fingers at about shoulder height.
  4. Explain that they have to lower the stick to the ground without any of them losing contact with it.
  5. Each time someone loses contact get them to start again.
  6. To extend or vary the game you can get them to raise the stick as well.

Resources

  • A long lightweight stick (bamboo cane, garden stick, tent pole or similar)

Turning the sheet

Useful for

Co-ordination; using your strengths; talking to one another; lateral thinking.

Method

  1. The whole group has to stand on the sheet.
  2. The aim is for them to completely flip the sheet over without any of them stepping off it.

Resources

  • A sheet or picnic blanket

Sharing crisps

Useful for

Compromise; the value of talking in small groups; when under pressure we can make decisions easily about unimportant things.

Method

  1. Ask each person to repeat and complete the sentence: my favourite flavour of crisps is …
  2. Put everyone in pairs.
  3. Give them five seconds to decide what crisps they would share.
  4. Go round to each pair and ask them to announce together: Our favourite flavour of crisps is …
  5. Add pairs together to make fours and repeat.
  6. Keep going until it’s one big group deciding all together.

Resources

  • None
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involver blog Resources

Icebreaker games for school councils

The aim of the game was to get people from being in age order to alphabetical order without any of them stepping outside the lines.

On Friday I was in Weymouth training local teaching assistants (TAs) in how to use games to encourage positive relationships between young people. Naturally I did this through a long and detailed PowerPoint presentation that I read out word for word from the slides.

I kid, I kid, of course I did the whole thing through a series of games, which was a lot of fun for me and the TAs seemed to enjoy it too. I looked at three different types of games:

  1. Games to help you get to know one another and start talking (icebreakers)
  2. Games to encourage teamwork, co-operation and collaboration
  3. Games that encourage teamwork through competition

Below are the icebreakers I used. There are collaborative and competitive team building games here: Collaborative – Competitive

Remember to get the most out of all of these activities …

Before the activity

  • Explain the rules as simply as possible.
  • Don’t give tips on how to complete the task.
  • Don’t explain what you want them to get out of it.

During the activity

  • Unless a judge is needed, you should take full part in the activity.
  • If everyone is struggling, pause the game and ask people what is going wrong; ask them what they could do to change it.
  • Stop the games while people are still excited, don’t wait for them to start dragging.

After the activity

  • Don’t make a big deal out of winners and losers – a quick cheer or round of applause is enough.
  • Draw out the learning through asking them to reflect on the activity, don’t tell them what you think the learning should be.
    • Ask those who succeeded: What worked well in your team? What did you do that allowed you to succeed?
    • Ask those who struggled: What would you differently next time?
    • Ask those who struggled but managed in the end: What do you change? Why? Did that work?
    • Finally, ask them what they learned through the activity – they may well come up with far more than you intended!

Human bingo

Useful for

Getting to know one another, seeing one another as more than just a, say Y3 pupil.

Method

  1. Before the game: Create a bingo sheet by having a grid with a statement in each box (e.g. Supports Arsenal; Plays a team sport; Has been to the Houses of Parliament). Each of the statements should encourage them to ask some questions of other participants that will help them get to know them. Print one for each participant.
  2. Give each participant a sheet and a pen.
  3. Explain that they find one person in the room about whom each statement is true and write their name in the box.
  4. They have to fill in all the boxes, so will have to talk to everyone in the room.
  5. It’s good to include yourself in the game.

Resources

  • Human bingo sheet for each participant. Here are some you can just use:
    [download id=”252″ format=”1″]
    [download id=”253″ format=”1″]
    [download id=”254″ format=”1″]
    and some you can edit:
    [download id=”256″ format=”1″]
    [download id=”258″ format=”1″]
    [download id=”257″ format=”1″]
  • Pen for each participant

Talking in circles

Useful for

Listening skills; difference between discussion and listening; getting to know one another.

Method

  1. Get everyone to sit down, make sure all chairs are filled and that everyone is opposite someone.
  2. Ask everyone to introduce themselves to the person opposite.
  3. Pick a topic and ask the people on the inside to talk about it to the people on the outside.
  4. Then pick another topic and ask the people on the outside to tell the people on the inside about it.
  5. Get one circle to stand up and move around a few places; get them to sit down and repeat with different topics as many times as you like.
  6. You can ask them to make a decision together (e.g. if we had to watch one TV programme together all weekend, what would it be?)
  7. Get them to reflect on good listening and what the difference is between when you’re just telling someone something and when you have to make a decision together.

Resources

  • Two circles of chairs, one inside the other. Each chair should be facing another chair.

Envelope game

Useful for

Getting to know one another, speaking out loud; being a bit silly.

Method

  1. Before the session, write a series of questions to put in each of the envelopes. These should be amusing, vaguely revealing and quick to answer. E.g.:
  2. If you were a superhero, what power would you have?
  3. Where’s the best place to eat?
  4. If you had to watch only one TV show for ever, what would it be?
  5. Split people into groups of 4 or 5. Ask them to pull their chairs into small circles, so they can see everyone else in their group.
  6. Hand each group an envelope and get one person to read it out to the rest.
  7. Each group follows the instructions on the envelope, which read:
    • Take a piece of paper out of the envelope.
    • Read it and tell everyone else in the group your answer.
    • Put the paper back and pass the envelope on.
    • Keep going round the circle.

Resources

  • Chairs
  • Envelopes with instructions on: [download id=”259″ format=”1″]
  • Slips of paper with questions on in each envelope: [download id=”260″ format=”1″]

Throwing an alien

Useful for

Concentration; eye contact; using names; being silly.

Method

  1. Everyone stands or sits in a circle.
  2. Explain the scenario: there is an invisible, face-eating alien loose.
  3. Put your hands to the sides of your head and wiggle them about (this is you trying to wrestle the alien off your face).
  4. The person on your right has to put her left hand to her head and wiggle it about.
  5. The person to your left has to put his right hand to his head and wiggle it about.
  6. Make eye contact with someone else across the circle and throw them the alien.
  7. That person has to ‘catch’ the alien by wiggling their hands next to their head and the people on either side each have to wiggle one hand.
  8. Get the alien thrown around quickly.
  9. You can get people to concentrate more by:
    • having more than one alien;
    • getting people to shout names of other people in the circle (does the alien follow the names or the eyes?)

Resources

  • None

Splat/Compliment Splat/Fact Splat

Useful for

Getting to know names; being silly.

Method

  1. Get everyone in a circle and ask them to imagine they have some horrible goo in their hands.
  2. Go round the circle and ask everyone to say their names nice and loud.
  3. When you shout someone’s name they have to duck and the person on either side of them has to pretend to throw the goo over their head and
    shout ‘Splat!’.
  4. The slowest person gets splatted and is out. If the person whose name is called doesn’t duck s/he is out.
  5. Get the person who is out to call the next name.
  6. When just two are left, stand them back to back and get them to have a duel. The last person out counts. The final two have to step apart each time a number is counted. When a number is called out of order they have to spin round and splat each other.

Variations

  • Rather than splatting you have to say a compliment about the person ducking. The quickest one wins.
  • Rather than splatting you have to say a fact about the subject you’ve been studying. Incorrect or repeated facts mean you lose. Otherwise, the quickest wins.

Resources

  • None

Bombs and shields

Useful for

Getting people moving around. Works with any size group (if you have enough room).

Method

  1. Ask everyone to think of one other person in the room. They shouldn’t let that other person know that they have chosen them.
  2. Then get everyone to choose a second person, also without letting them know.
  3. Explain:
  4. The first person they chose is a bomb.
  5. The second person they chose is a shield and is the only thing that will save them from the bomb.
  6. When the bomb explodes their shield is in between them and the bomb.
  7. Start running around. Count down and make a boom.
  8. Afterwards you can get everyone to shake the hands of their bombs and shields.

Resources

  • None
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Student voice in your SOLE

In 1999 a group of educational researchers put an internet connected PC in the wall of a New Delhi slum. Then they left it alone. Children from the slum gathered around this ‘hole in the wall’ and, with no direction, taught themselves how to use the computer and browse the internet simply through their own curiosity.

When Dr. Sugata Mitra presented these findings online it was so compelling that his lectures went viral and Mitra was propelled to the status of a minor internet celebrity.

Now, after a decade of follow up research into the effectiveness of child led learning, Sugata is inviting educators from all backgrounds to take part in a wider experiment. By providing groups of children with a Self-Organised Learning Environment (SOLE), the experiment aims to find effective ways of encouraging students to embrace their innate curiosity and use this as their incentive to learn in a broad range of environments, be it in the classroom or the home. This works by posing stimulating, profound or weird questions and letting the children approach the subject in their own way, with minimal outside interference.

At involver we are very excited about the ideas behind this experiment and we think it could potentially have far reaching implications for student voice. By allowing children to take charge of their learning it promotes a culture where they are not only encouraged but expected to contribute and be listened to. A SOLE might, for example, be a great way to get students to prepare a proposal to the school council: students would be responsible for the questions asked, and they would be free to answer them in innovative and exploratory ways.

Imagine the feedback you could receive by posing questions like, ‘why do people from all over the world come to our school?’, ‘who is school for?’, or even ‘what is learning?’, to a group of children, and then leaving them to discuss, explore and discover their own answers. We strongly encourage educators to participate in this experiment so education systems all over the world can benefit from the insights we may find in the results.

If you would be interested in learning more about Sugata’s research you can find his profile at TED.com, or to get involved with the SOLE experiment you can download the toolkit available with directions and advice on how to set one up.

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St Nicholas and rhetological fallacies

Today we had a day off from visiting schools and instead went to meet one of CEDU’s partner organisations in Brno, Masaryk University Civic Education Centre. They are doing really interesting work on adult civic education through libraries. I love the idea of libraries as hubs for civil society.

In their office they had some posters taken from the Information is Beautiful website about ‘rhetological’ fallacies. The author says,

The word ‘rhetological’ is made up. Just so I can munge two types of entity: rhetorical techniques and logical fallacies.

The Civic Education Centre have translated them into Czech and I think they would be a great addition to the the wall of any citizenship classroom or school council meeting room.

After our visit with the Civic Education Centre and a tour around Brno we drove on to the town near our next school, right in the centre of the Czech Republic. Whilst having supper in our hotel we became involved in a Czech Christmas tradition.  Here St Nicholas comes on the 5th/6th of December to give presents to children, but he’s accompanied by devils and angels. Whether you get sweets or a potato and whether you have to answer to the devils or angels depends on how good or bad you’ve been during the year. Two of our hosts, Camila and Filip had their sins and achievements recounted by St Nic, but unfortunately Greg and I missed out as he didn’t speak English.

St Nicholas
St Nicholas reading from his book of naughty and nice boys and girls.
Devils
Two of the devils helping St Nicholas read from his book.
Angel
St Nicholas was also accompanied by an angel but she didn’t have much to say to our table.

Tomorrow we’ll have another school to tell you about.

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Fantastic school council meeting in Krnov

The noticeboard at the front entrance, showing what the school council is working on and what it has achieved.

Our first stop, at Krnov School, was a real treat. The first thing we saw when we came through the front door was a ‘School Parliament’ (school council) noticeboard laying out what the Parliament is working on now and what it has done recently. As we explored later we saw there were two more noticeboards for the Parliament, one outside the headteacher’s office and the other outside the music room where they meet. The locations of the these boards makes a clear statement about the status of the Parliament in the school. They have named their school council ‘Heart of the School’, which has the same connotations in Czech as it does in English.

The school council meeting we got to see was for the upper school (students aged 11-15). The school has students from age 6-15 and they split their school council in two, one for the lower school and one for the upper school. The meeting we saw was really impressive: decisions were made, action was decided upon and fun was had. I’ll try to give you a sense of what this looked like and how it was achieved.

The upper school council with their logo in the background.

The council arrived and seated themselves in a circle sitting on drums/stools students had decorated. One of the older students ran through each of the classes to check that all the representatives were there.

The chair, another of the older students, checked up that the actions agreed at the last meeting had been completed and they moved on to the first discussion. This was about taking photos of the school council to display in the school and use on a Christmas card. After listening to a few points of view it was clear that there was general agreement so the chair moved to a vote. This was carried and the chair asked for a volunteer to ensure that the action was carried out.

All of the above happened in the first two minutes of the meeting. It seemed very informal, but incredibly effective. We were told by the students that the meeting was pretty typical and later by their teachers that these students are a fair cross-section of the school in terms of academic ability and interests. I’m still trying to work out what enabled them to work so well together.

Working in small teams with mixed ages.

After discussions about the school council website, plans for the play space outside the school the meeting came to a discussion about a new rewards system. At this point the school council co-ordinator, who had so far taken a back seat, took over. She split the meeting into mixed groups fo 4 or five and asked each group to come up with five ideas for why people should be rewarded by the school council. After a few minutes of discussion she paired up groups and asked them to get their two sets of five ideas down to five between them. The groups then announced their ideas and the chair wrote them up on the whiteboard, omitting any duplicates. Whilst this was happening the teacher handed each school councillor three stickers. They were to use these to vote between the options on the whiteboard. In this way a complex decision was taking democratically and quickly.

Voting on options

After this the teacher reminded the students of a game they had played at the previous few meetings. She told them they had ten minutes to plan how to complete it this time – they’d failed on their previous attempts. When the ten minutes was up – and the students had failed again – the teacher got them to reflect on their planning and the way they had worked together. They came up with some useful ideas which she helped them apply to their school council. The student’s comment that I liked the most was, “we did discuss it and made a plan, but we all just talked to our friends, we didn’t make a plan all together.”

The aim of the game was to get people from being in age order to alphabetical order without any of them stepping outside the lines.

It was clear that although they weren’t successful at completing the challenge those kinds of discussions and games had a real impact on how they were able to work together as a school council. It was a real honour to see them work.