Team Building Exercise: Play Ball
Objectives:
- To encourage a large group team spirit.
- To learn that not all team members are at the same stage at the same
time.
- To practice problem solving as a team.
Procedure:
Part 1: The Warm-Up
A good size for this activity is 10-15 students. The students stand, make an
ellipse or circle (this activity requires a cleared area), and raise one
hand. One person is picked to be the "quarterback". The quarterback
accepts a ball from you and throws
it to any other member in the circle. This second person puts his hand down
to catch the ball and keeps it down, indicating that he/she has been thrown
the ball. The second person throws to a third and so forth until all members
have caught and thrown the ball. The last person to be thrown the ball
throws the ball back to the quarterback.
This process is repeated in the same order, with everyone throwing to the
same person as they did in the first round.
Part 2: Crazy Eight
This time you will introduce (handing off to the quarterback each time) eight
balls one at a time with a few seconds between each introduction. The object
of this activity is to pass all eight balls in the correct order (same order
as in part 1) originating and ending with the quarterback in the least amount
of time. Let students do this activity until they feel successful.
Part 3: The Challenge Problem
Challenge students to use their problem-solving and team skills to solve the
following problem:
- All members of the circle must "touch" one ball starting and ending with
the quarterback with the following restrictions:
- No one person may "hold" the ball (hold is defined as being
more
than the time it takes to quickly receive and pass the ball). So one
person may not carry the ball around the circle,
letting each person touch it
- The same order must be followed as in the previous
activities.
Give students a reasonable time goal (for a group of 10-15, under
10 seconds is reasonable). Back off and let them brainstorm on ways to do
this. Let them try it a few times until they are satisfied with their time.
Then tell your students that
a group of 17 teachers (AiS) did this problem in 2.4 seconds
(without cheating)! They may want a few minutes to devise another solution
to beat or match this time.
Discussion Questions:
After Part 2 of this activity, ask the students to reflect back on the
activity and mentally answer the following:
- "When were you most
connected
(tuned in) to this activity, at the beginning, middle, or end?"
- "Describe this connection."
- "How important
were your fellow team mates during the activity?"
During the problem solving activity, remove yourself from the process and
observe the interactions. When finished with the activity, ask students to
discuss the team skills which were used to solve the problem. You may want
to comment on some of the things that you observed from the sidelines.
Materials:
Eight (soft) balls of different sizes and types (ie. nerf football,
basketball, baseball, koosh ball, etc.)
