Team-Building Exercises for Children
Not only can team-building exercises alter the social dynamics in a particular setting and teach children how to work together, but children can learn more about themselves and their peers through these activities. Team-building efforts may serve to help shy students become more assertive, and may cause more aggressive students to demonstrate a different aspect of their personality. Does this Spark an idea?
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Human Knot
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Children will have to work together to untangle themselves from the human knot that they form.
The children stand in a circle while holding hands. Explain to them that the way they are standing, facing each other and holding hands is the way to successfully complete their task. Then have them release hands and cross their arms and grab the hand of the person on their left and right. Once everyone is holding hands, the children must work together to get back to their original position of facing each other, holding hands without crossed arms. They cannot release hands; otherwise they must start over.
Community Service Project
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Having children organize and complete a service project together is one way to promote team-building. The children can generate a list of service project ideas and then select one to complete within a certain amount of time.
The children can work together to collect money or canned goods to donate to a cause or charitable organization. They can adopt a park and commit to keeping it clean. They may be able to help build a home through an organization such as Habitat for Humanity, which has a program called Youth United.
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Line Formation
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Give children five to 10 minutes to form a line according to their ages.
This task's difficulty depends on the age of the children. If children are the same age and have to consider birthdays, younger children may experience more difficulty organizing the group. They may not be as skilled organizing by birthdays. If the task seems too easy for older children, they can be told not to speak while completing the exercise. They will have to find other ways to communicate to organize themselves. Variations of this task can be used. For example, older children can organize themselves according to height while blindfolded or with their hands in their pockets.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit children image by Marzanna Syncerz from Fotolia.com
