Team-Building Activities
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
2 PEOPLE TO START - OTHERS JOIN IN
Person One begins miming an activity (like brushing his/her teeth) and Person Two asks "What are you doing?" and Person one must answer with any activity except what he/she is actually doing (I am mowing the lawn). Person Two then begins miming Person One's answer (this goes on until someone can't mime the activity or says what he/she is actually doing)
1. mimes biting an apple
2. What are you doing?
3. kissing a Martian
4. mimes kissing a Martian
5. What are you doing?
6. running a race
and so forth
WHO AM I?
Make up a set of cards with pairs like The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Bonnie and Clyde, Beauty and the Beast, Bacon and Eggs, Anthony and Cleopatra, and so forth.
Place one of the cards on everyone's back. The person is not to look at his/her card. Explain that each person will be asked to identify the name of the person or thing on their back. He/she will do this by asking other people questions that can be answered "yes" "no" or "not certain" If the person asking receives a "yes" answer, he or she can continue to ask that team member additional questions until a No response is given. At that point, he or she must move to another team member to ask another question. When the person finds out who she or he is, they go looking for their partner.
POTATO CANDLE
Cut and shape a potato into a cylindrical shape. Make a small indentation in the top so an almond sliver can be slipped in. Store the potato in a bowl of water until you are ready to begin.
After you remove the potato from the water, slip the almond into the indentation, and wrap the bottom into aluminum foil. The foil can be used as a holder. Turn off the lights, and ask students to make observations of what you do. They should be encouraged to use all of their senses, and they should record their observations in writing.
Light the almond sliver with a match or lighter, and walk slowly around the room. Have students report their observations, and record them on board or overhead. Students will often report seeing a white wax candle, wax dripping, the wick getting smaller, etc. As they are reporting, take a bite from the "candle." After the gasps and "EWWW's" die down, ask students how this changes what they thought had happened. How many of the observations are still accurate? What actual materials were used?br>
PIGMAN VALUES PUZZLE
This isn't exactly a puzzle...more of a psychological test...but it's great fun. It's from Paul Zindel's YA classic, *The Pigman*.
One day Husband gets up and announces to Wife that he's leaving on a business trip. She pleads to go with him, but he refuses to take her. Wife is eager to go because she has been trying to end an affair with Lover, but as soon as Husband leaves, she crosses the river and spends the night with Lover. The next morning she wakes up in a panic, starts to cross the bridge, but sees Assassin waiting for her at the other side. The only other way to cross the river is by ferry. Wife approashes the Boatman, who demands the fare, but she has no money. Wife hurries back and asks Lover for the fare, but he refuses to help her. Despairing, Wife then dashes across the bridge and meets the Assassin, who stabs her to death.
It helps to accompany the story-telling with a crude map (included in the book). After telling the story, ask each participant to number from 1-5 and rank each character from most responsible to least responsible for Wife's death (including Wife herself). Tell them that, according to Edward Albee, who got the story from Greek fishermen, this exercise reveals your values, or what matters most to you in life. Here's the key:
WIFE = Fun
HUSBAND = Love
LOVER = Sex
BOATMAN = Magic
ASSASSIN = Money
Over the years, I've done this with dozenss of groups, from junior high age on up, and with few exceptions, kids rank Wife herself as #1, which adults rarely do. Maybe there's something to this little test after all....
RAINFOREST SIMULATION
I've done this in regular classrooms set up in rows, but the last couple of times I had access to a short hall, where I had the students stand in three long rows, which made the acoustics even better. I usually act as the leader, but it would be interesting to give the directions to a conductor selected by the group and let them construct the activity for themselves.
Tell participants that they are to mimic the activity of the conductor as he/she passes in front of them and to continue the same movement until the conductor passes in front again and changes it. Beginning on either side, the conductor walks slowly across the front of the room rubbing palms together rapidly; each row joins in as the conductor passes. When the conductor reaches the last row, he/she turns around and walks back to the other side, continuing the palm rubbing. When the conductor reaches the starting row, the movement changes to rapidly alternating finger-snapping. Continue moving slowly across in front of each row, reversing direction and going back to the starting point as before. Repeat the process two more times. On the third sweep, the movement changes to slapping palms down on lower thighs (alternating rapidly), just above the knees. The fourth and final movement is foot-stomping. After completing the foot-stomping round, the conductor proceeds back through the movements in reverse order: i.e., thigh-slapping, finger-snapping, and palm-rubbing.
This sounds hopelessly complicated, I know, but it really isn't. The conductor just moves back and forth along the front row, changing the pace to suit her/his sense of how the rainstorm is developing, doing the motions in this order:
palm-rubbing
finger-snapping
thigh-slapping
foot-stomping
thigh-slapping
finger-snapping
palm-rubbing
This is a great lesson in cooperation, but I've also made applications to writing by challenging participants to choose vivid, specific words and metaphors to re-create the sounds of a rainstorm.
SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION
Give small groups sets of words on separate tagboard pieces or index cards and challenge them to construct gramatically adequate and sensible sentences. Here are two of my favorites:
1. number fingers hand's my my five than
2. with this one yourself morning pancake content
(These came from GAMES magazine, eons ago.)
Contributed by Gloria Pipkin and other NCTE-Talkies
