Team Building Activities
Team building activities are useful for a number of reasons in your classroom. You may want to start each day with a team building activity to get students warmed up and comfortable around their peers. Team building activities are also a great way to get students to focus after a recess. As a teacher, it allows you to identify if students had disagreements during their free time with friends. Lastly, team building activities are actually a great way to end a school day. Finishing the day with a fun team building activity is a great way to end on a positive note and have students feel good on their way out.
Team building activities allow students to take small risks among their peers in a positive and encouraging environment. Team building activities encourage all students to participate. Many activities can be used to allow students to participate, to varying degrees, until they feel comfortable to have a more central role. Team building activities are all about inclusion and creating a positive environment for students to learn their best!
#1. The winds of change
Students sit in a circle with one student in the middle. The person in the middle says “the winds of change is blowing for anyone who…” and the student in the middle will come up with something like “is wearing a blue shirt” or “wears glasses” → encourage the kid in the middle to be as creative as possible. Make sure everyone gets a chance to participate. Everyone who applies to what the student in the middle says stands up and has to switch spots in the circle with someone else while the person in the middle also tries to take a spot. The person who does not find a spot is the next person in the middle and begins the next round.
#2. Magic Wink
Have students sit in a circle. Choose one student and have them leave the area, this student is the detective. Choose one student in the circle to be the magician. Call back the detective who left the area. The magician must wink at the other students in the circle to cast a sleeping spell on them. Students who have a spell case on them must fall over and pretend to sleep. The detective has three chances to guess who the magician is, or until all students are sleeping.
#3. Telephone
Have students sit in a circle, or a line, and have one person think of something (appropriate) to say. They will then whisper their message to the person on their left. The last person in the circle to receive the message says the message out loud, then you compare it to the original message.
#4. Pass the penny
Have students sit in a large circle and have one student leave the area to become the detective. Give one of the students a penny, rock, or other small item. Invite the detective back to stand in the middle of the circle and try and guess where the penny is located while the group tries to fool the detective by doing fake passes.
#5. Human machine
Divide into small groups of 4-6 students. Allot about 5 minutes for each group to create a human machine, using at least two moving parts, and it must make a sound. All players work together to come up with an idea for a machine that moves. Each group presents their machine to the larger group, and the other groups have to guess what machine the group made.
Try these team building activities in your classroom this year and see how much your students grow along side each other! They will have tons of fun and build strong relationships with their peers along the way.
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