This group works for children ages three and up. It can be played during class, with a team or a family. Gather a rubber band and approximately 30 toothpicks. Give each member of your group a toothpick to break in half. Take the remaining 20-plus toothpicks and wrap them with the rubber band. Give each member of your group a go at trying to break the bundle in half. They will soon find out, it won't break. To wrap it up, discuss how a team or family is stronger when united and working together side by side.
Using building blocks, divide your group into groups of about six to eight. Instruct the children that they have two minutes to discuss among themselves what they are going to build with their blocks. They may not touch the blocks at this time. Following that, each group is given three minutes to complete their structure without talking. When finished, the group can share their experiences about how they decided what to build, how they solved any problems or compromised to come to a decision.
This is a simple game played with one ball for every six students you have. The object of the game is for the team to develop a strategy to complete the task. Your instruction may be to keep the ball off the ground for 10 seconds or 30 hits. Another variation is to keep it off the ground but one person can not hit the ball twice in a row. This game encourages children to work together and builds team spirit.
All the children in your group join hands. Instruct them to concentrate on holding on and not letting go. They need each other to complete this task. In three separate spots, place one hula hoop at two joining hands. Have the children wiggle and move to get the hula hoop over their bodies and onto the next person without letting go of their teammate's hand. The team must also watch out for the other hula hoops. The group must slow them down without stopping movement so that two don't meet in one place. If this is too advanced for your group, start with one hula hoop and increase the hula hoops as they increase their speed.