Teamwork is an essential aspect of modern-day work life.
It is the very foundation on which companies, businesses, governments, corporations, and other bodies of people are built and rely.
As a key element of a collective workforce, it is what combines the functions and actions of several individuals to execute a bigger task at hand with efficacy and efficiency.
There are many attributes to a good team player that one should learn and adopt, and be able to apply by the time they enter the job market.
Companies on the other hand must ensure an all-inclusive work environment for people from all walks of life.
When it comes to instilling the right mentality for teamwork, what’s a better way to promote and practice it than school life?
Better known as team building, it is how kids learn to play together and communicate, collaborate, and coordinate with one another toward a common goal.
Definition of team building
Team building is the process of encouraging people to work together as a team, or better yet, as a single unit as effectively as possible.
It revolves around the five C’s of teamwork i.e. communication, camaraderie, commitment, confidence, and coachability.
Designed to promote teamwork, tuning, and cooperation among team members, it has several techniques at its disposal in what are called team-building exercises/ activities.
What are team-building activities?
Team building activities refer to the events and programs that are designed to improve the communication, trust, collaboration, and cohesion between the team members.
When practiced often, they can sharpen both individual and collective learning, problem-solving, decision-making, and the overall performance of your team as a whole.
There are dozens of such team-building activities out there that you could use depending on your goal whether in the classroom or a professional setting.
Types of team building activities
While there are plenty of team-building exercises in today’s culture, most fall under one of the four categories.
- Communication-oriented
- Trust-building
- Problem-solving &
- Decision-making
It is these four major areas that the rest of the team building exercises are aimed at and depending on the cognitive ability of different target groups or teams may vary from simple to complex.
For high schoolers or developing minds like those of children, the activities may come in the form of sports, games, quizzes, brain teasers, icebreakers, storytelling, and all things funny.
For adults, they may be a bit more work-oriented but no less exciting than children’s play including brainstorming, dumb charades, truth and dare, team-only hangouts, sporting events, birthday blasts, team rewards, happy meals, and so on.
While adding a bit of fun to your team-building exercises may seem over casual, it can certainly take the steam off from the classroom or workplace. All the while boosting the confidence of introverts and newcomers.
As more and more people start to volunteer, it creates more opportunities for interaction, understanding, and bonding between those involved.
Here are some of the coolest team-building activities for students that you can try.
Best team-building activities for students
1. A Scavenger hunt is an old-school team-building exercise for students that involves solving clues and puzzles together to find certain items.
To play it, all you have to do is hide specific items inside the classroom or campus and provide hints and puzzles to the participants/ teams to find them out.
A Scavenger hunt is a perfect way to teach collaboration to larger groups of students.
2. Escape the Classroom is yet another popular game that tests the problem-solving skills of your students by having them work together on a given task or challenge.
The sooner they can find the solution or finish the task, the sooner they can go home or escape the classroom.
Here’s how you can play it- choose a task/ problem, provide clues or information via notes or computer, and let the students do the rest.
3. Trivia quiz There are all kinds of trivia games that you can carry out in the classroom both digitally or through the whiteboard.
Some of these include Trivia Generator, TriviaMaker, Jeopardy, and Kahoot!
Along with pre-made topics, they allow you to create and come up with your own quizzes based on what you want the students to learn about, be it about each other, the curriculum, or the world in general.
4. Classroom parties as the name suggests have everything to do with food, music, games, decorations, and so on.
To make that happen, simply allow your students to organize a classroom party depending on a particular theme, festival, or specific occasion.
Give them different responsibilities by dividing them into groups as it will allow them to interact, coordinate, and work together towards a common goal.
5. Shoot a movie/ skit! Perhaps no other way can make children more creative than letting them work on something original like a movie project or skit.
To have them enact properly, you might want to give them a topic or subject, a plot or storyline, and instructions on costumes, roles, props, etc.
Once the movie is shot and edited, arrange a movie time for students to watch it together.
6. Human knot is another popular and one of the easiest team-building exercises for adults and kids alike.
Quite common in the corporate world, it is known to improve communication, bonding, and collaboration between people.
All you need is for your students to stand in a circle, then have them reach out their hands to join hands with two other people except for the ones who are directly next to them.
Now let them untangle the knot without letting go of the hands and see how quickly every movement turns into laughter.
7. Bob the builder is all about building stuff together.
It helps students collaborate, create, and learn from their mistakes.
To play it, you can use any of the items such as Lego bricks, building blocks, playing cards, toothpicks, marshmallows, disposable cups, and so on.
8. Blind Artist or blind guide is an awesome game for students as it builds communication skills, and trust, and improves their ability to draw pictures and art.
Process:
- Have your students form pairs of two.
- Pick each couple individually and make them stand or sit while turning their back on each other.
- Now blindfold one partner and give a drawing or instructions to another.
- Let the latter dictate and the blind one draw without being able to see what he’s drawing unless complete.
- Add a variety of conditions if you like.
9. A Newspaper fashion show is an interesting way to kill boredom and involve students in something creative.
Simply hand out copies of the newspaper to your students and ask them to perform a fashion show by curating dresses or costumes out of it.
10. Storytelling is an ideal team-building activity for students of all age groups, especially the younger ones. I mean who doesn’t love stories?
To make it all the more interesting, start by initiating a story or theme and have each student add a narrative, then next, and so on.
11. Minefield, the famous computer game, can be imitated in a classroom by defining a separate area for putting obstacles such as plastic cones, cups, and chairs in between.
Have each student or team go through the minefield one by one without hitting an explosion, or obstacle in this case.
Since the players would most likely be blindfolded, they’d have to trust their team members for instructions and guidance which will ultimately increase communication and confidence among students.
12. Tug of War is a well-known sport that needs proper coordination among team members even more than their strength.
To indulge that, all you need is a sturdy rope. Then divide your class into two teams and have them hold the rope from opposite sides. Now make them pull the rope until one team drags the other over the central line.
13. Hot seat is a great team-building activity for high-schoolers as it tests and improves their vocabulary and communication skills.
In it, one team selects a word or term and a member from the other team tries to guess and write/ draw the thing on the whiteboard.
The player cannot see or hear the word and has to guess it using hints and clues from his team that indicate the term.
14. Secrets in a box Another game for students to get to know each other is by spilling secrets in a box.
In this activity, every student writes something about themselves on a piece of paper and puts the chit inside a box. Once everyone is done, each student picks out a slip one by one, and the rest of the class tries to guess who it is.
15. Boo the Dragon is a silent game that encourages children to coordinate without chit-chatting.
All it needs is one person who can act as a sleeping dragon while others acting as peasants or villagers have to complete a task or project without talking lest the dragon wakes up.
Takeaway
While there are tons of team-building activities in the realm of education, it’s all about choosing the right one depending on the level of cognition and curriculum of the particular age group.
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