Teachers who instil teamwork, leadership, resilience, and having fun in their students transform the course of their student’s lives. It isn’t easy to instil these principles among children and teenagers, but it is essential.
Harry Nevin is a chartered social counsellor and parenting expert at Balloons Sydney. According to him, “Getting along with people and interacting with them is the foundation of all aspects in existence. Children must understand how to give and receive, share, take turns, contribute to their strengths, and bring in others to fill in the holes from an early age. It’s a fundamental social ability.”
Teaching teamwork, leadership, and resilience, on the other hand, goes beyond rote learning, estimation, and other conventional learning techniques. It necessitates engagement and participation.
Listed below are ways to teach school students the value of teamwork, leadership, and resilience while having a good time.
Address them as TEAMS and not GROUPS
A group is made up of individuals who work together to organise different individual actions. On the other hand, a team has a mutual goal and a collective sense of obligation for success. Although it’s pretty corny, deciding on a team name is a first step in working as a team.
Build Strong Team Bonds From The Outset
Coming up with their team name is in itself a team-building exercise. By doing that, students establish a common identity by giving themselves a title. Consequently, when strong team bonds are set initially, it would be easier to invite the teams to contribute to a series of questions regarding themselves or participate in some tasks. Just make sure to allow them to focus on their circumstances and make decisions on how to progress.
Let Teams Set Their Expectations
As much as possible, when having school team building activities, don’t advise teams what kind of action is anticipated; instead, let them set their expectations. Teams explore building blocks of successful teamwork like constructive interdependence, individual responsibility, and leadership skills whenever they determine their own ground rules and expectations. Ground rules provide a valuable guide for assisting students in working as a team by understanding that, in addition to having the job accomplished, how to do the job is equally significant. The team’s ground rules represent what’s crucial to them in terms of how they collaborate and treat one another. They facilitate groups in holding participants personally responsible; after all, each team participant committed to the rules.
Play A Walk of Trust
It’s critical to gain trust in others and provide a support network to overcome adversity. School team-building activities are fun ways to teach school students about resiliency and winning confidence. Try playing a walk of trust. In this game, the students are blindfolded and teamed together to navigate the basic obstacle course. The blindfolded students must depend on their partner’s guide centre behaviour and support to finish the course. Following this game, teachers should give a follow-up discussion about their realisations after the game.
Make A Circle Of Compliments
Even if it’s not apparent, fostering kindness is a vital piece of children’s resilience development. Top of the list of suggested group activities for students is Making A Circle of Compliments—a fun game to practice resilience. You must have at least six children to participate. Make a loop with the kids’ legs spread in front of them. Choose one kid to lead the way. He or she will give some compliments to anybody inside the circle. Anyone who receives a compliment draws their legs in after receiving a compliment so that everybody understands you’ve already got one. Keep going until everybody has been praised.
The true secret to this game is to get students complimenting anything other than their appearance. To make the compliments more significant, try to steer them away from topics that are about their appearance. This activity is more challenging for younger children and requires some preparation.
Have Fun And Be Resilient Playing Musical Chairs
Musical Chairs is one of the oldie but goodies group activities for students. It teaches one of the most important things to remember while striving to develop resiliency. That is, you don’t necessarily win, that’s how it is, and it’s okay.
In the first round, get the same number of seats as players, such that everybody has a spot. Then, one by one, take a chair away every time the music stops so that there is only one kid out. They will sense the emotions that come with being the last one and come to grips with it. Discuss at the end of the game so that the kids can share what they’ve learned.
Let Students Take The Hula-hoop Challenge
Learning to deal with conflict and developing problem-solving capabilities is another way to help students enhance resilience. Anything from image puzzles and group activities for students will teach them problem-solving and logic on their own. However, it’s still beneficial to understand how to collaborate with others to solve challenges as a team. Among the many fun team-building activities for students in Melbourne, a hula-hoop challenge is more interesting. It allows children to collaborate as a team to achieve a collective purpose.
Shape a circle with the kids keeping hands, but put a hula-hoop above one arm until the last pair connects. The aim is to have the hula-hoop pass around the circle while not letting go of each other’s hands. For the hoop to move around, the kids may have to work and help one another so they don’t tip over. After the game, have a sharing discussion about what made the challenge complicated and what solutions they come up with at the end.
Make Students Do The Perfect Square
This one of the most enjoyable group activities for students needs excellent teamwork and verbal communication. What you’ll need is a long rope with both ends bound together and bandanas or cloth strips to use as blindfolds. Students can form a circle and set the rope in front of them. Instruct them to put on their blindfolds and slowly turn and move away from the circle. Finally, make everybody return to the rope, still with their blindfolds, to create a perfect square. Try to set a time limit to make things more challenging.
Tug of War in Four Directions
Tug of War In Four Directions is among the most recommended group-building activities for students. It is an outdoor play that is twice as entertaining as traditional tug-of-war. Start playing the game by making an X form by tying two long ropes together around their centre points. Wrap a bandana at the centre behaviour of the intersection. Cones are then used to build a loop that suits around the X. Assemble four teams, with each group standing from one of the ropes’ four ends. Each team starts pulling when you give the signal. The aim is to be the first team to drag the other groups in their path long enough for the bandana to reach outside the circle of cones.
Learn From The Spider Web
If your list of fun team building activities for students in Melbourne is exhausted, add Spider Web to your list. This fun game reminds the students that, through their differences, they are all related in every way. Standing or seated, form a circle. The game starts with the first player telling the audience an amusing or humiliating tale about themselves while carrying a big ball of twine. When they’re up, they’ll hang on to the twine’s end and toss the ball to anyone in the circle. The student that catches the ball of twine says an amusing or humiliating tale about themselves, which they then move on to another student. The game continues until each individual has received the twine. The twine would create a “spider web” that will bind each student to the others.
Take On The Marshmallows and Toothpicks Challenge
The Marshmallows and Toothpicks Challenge is another team building game to add to your potpourri of group building activities for students. In playing this game, students can be divided into teams of the same size. Give each team an equal amount of wooden toothpicks and marshmallows. When dealing with younger age groups, be extra cautious with the toothpicks. You can use other alternatives such as drinking straws or sticks. Challenge the teams to design the highest, most extensive, or most innovative structure in the shortest period possible. After that, make each team explain what they created.
Integrate Teamwork, Leadership, and Resilience In Your Lessons
More than implementing group building activities for students, try to integrate discussions of leadership effectiveness, fruits of resilience, and the benefits of teamwork into your discussions from time to time. Have a more in-depth analysis about how a prominent leader flourished or a conversation of the student’s parents or mentors’ resilience. Look for signs of positive (or not so good) resilience, teamwork, or leadership behaviour in their favourite musicians, actors, or athletes. It would also be great to assign a task to students to find one.
Will You Take Up The Challenge To Change Your Students Lives?
At an early age, children should be taught essential emotional and social skills. Children’s ability to build these skills is dependent on the solid reinforcement and interactions they have with those around them, particularly their family and community. It’s reassuring to know that educators can teach leadership, teamwork, and resilience, the critical metrics of success, in a fun and exciting way with the help of group building activities for students.
URBAN QUEST is the mastermind behind fun team-building activities for students in Melbourne. Connect with us if you want your kids or students to learn while having a blast.
About the author: Owen Roberts is a freelance writer based in Sydney with a special interest in content marketing. He enjoys writing about trends and developments in all areas including Team Building
