Sometimes a bit of team building activity can do wonders for helping your students to learn how to work together. If you've noticed your classroom is having trouble thinking as a group, perhaps it's time for some outdoor team building. This allows you to disguise learning as play! Here are a few ways a session of team building can benefit your classroom.
What is outdoor team building? Essentially, it consists of a variety of activities and games designed to help your students learn to behave in a group. These games teach an assortment of different valuable skills they'll not only need in the classroom, but in the workplace as well. Best of all, your students will have no idea that they're learning!
Most teachers begin outdoor team building with a few icebreaker activities. This gets your students accustomed to the idea of working in a group with a few simple, fun activities. It's also useful for letting people in the group get to know one another. These include call and response games, introductions, and a few gentle, easy physical games such as the human knot.
Once your students are used to the idea of outdoor team building, it's time to introduce more physical fun. These include games such as relay races, group tag, group blind man's bluff, tug of war, catching games, crack the whip, and other games. These games teach your students how to think on their feet as well as encourage teamwork, problem solving, and thinking outside of the box. It also helps your students to burn off a bit of energy as well, leaving them happy and glowing.
Once the physical games are over, there are also verbal and mental games to consider. This helps the outdoor team building seminar to wind down to close on a positive note. These can consist of memory games, word association, what-if scenarios, optical illusions, the telephone game, and other activities. These games not only encourage children to think creatively; they also do wonders for encouraging public discussion, empathy, critical thinking, and more.
These are only a few outdoor team building activities to consider. Once you've enjoyed a day of team building with your students, you'll be surprised at just how much they end up absorbing from the experience. By spending a day or two encouraging such concepts in a fun, natural manner, you will be giving them the gift of effortless group interaction that they will enjoy for the rest of their lives. Learn more today!
Middle school is a turbulent time for many children. However, with middle school team building, they can learn valuable concepts about group thinking that they can continue to use and benefit from throughout their school careers. Here are a few things to expect when attending a middle school team building seminar.
Most team building seminars begin with an ice breaker session. This allows the speaker to give a mission statement of sorts, give the children an idea of what sort of activities they will be doing, and give them an idea regarding the sort of concepts they will be learning. Also included in ice breaker sessions are small, easy exercises such as name memorization, call and response games, and fun physical games such as the human knot. These games are designed to energize and motivate the students as well as give them a taste of what the next few hours will be like.
Once the ice breaker session is over, the next step in middle school team building often includes more athletic games. A few of these include group tag, group blind man's bluff, scavenger hunts, crack the whip, relay races, and more. Most instructors avoid using games such as hide and seek, which pit an individual against the rest of the time. By using games where the entire group is active, students can learn concepts such as teamwork, leadership, role assignments, communications, and acting under pressure.
Of course, there are plenty of mental and verbal games as well. These include memorization games, the telephone game, storytelling, what-if scenarios, optical illusions, drawing sessions, and more. These games are designed to encourage creativity, discussion, empathy, public speaking skills, and more. Additionally, these sort of games are perfect for winding the students down after a long afternoon of play.
Keep in mind that not all middle school team building games may go as planned. Should conflict or an accident occur, it's a good idea to stop the activity immediately and have a discussion on what happened, how they could have reacted better, and what they can do to fix the problem. Avoid chastising any single individual or allowing the group to gang up on one person. By doing this, you are teaching them to make the best out of a bad situation rather than just heaping blame on an individual.
Learn more today about how middle school team building can benefit your kids. Whether they are chronically shy, prone to conflict, or just not working well together, a middle school team building seminar is the perfect solution for teaching them how to work together and reap the benefits.