Author: David Priestley

Give everyone in your group a coloured sheet of paper and pen. Ask your learners to draw a pattern of their choice on their piece of paper. When everyone has finished ask them to fill the pattern with words or phrases describing what they like about themselves, skills they have and skills they would like to gain. Next, get them to write their name on their sheet. Pass around the finished patterns for everyone else in the group to look at, then stick to the wall for the rest of the workshop. This exercise helps people to appreciate themselves and others for who they…

This can be used to place limits on dominant or over-eager speakers. It also encourages shy speakers to contribute. Each person is given the same number of matches (one to five matches depending on time available.) Every time someone speaks s/he gives up a match. When someone has used all their matches they may not speak again until everyone else’s matches are gone too. Decide beforehand whether you will allow participants to give their matches to other members of the group.

This discussion exercise is something to try with a group at the end of a training workshop, team development session or even a learning class. Withholds are thoughts that we keep to ourselves. They usually have to do with judgements about ourselves, others, or what is happening in the group. For this tool to work there needs to be in a climate of generous listening, which may take some time to achieve. It may be helpful if the group commits to putting aside enough time to relax together and do this exercise. Set up an unstructured round asking people to make…

The objective of the activity is to get all team members safely across the lava flow. Participants cannot touch the lava and therefore must use platforms provided to cross to safety. Equipment Required: Platforms: Either a tire, milk crate, carpet square, or rubber baseball base per person – you can also substitute for 8.5″ x 11″ pieces of paper. To mark off the activity area use 2 pieces of rope (or 4 cones) Blindfolds (optional) Space Required: Medium. Indoors or outdoors. Group Size: 8 to 12 ideally, but can be done with 6 to 14 participants. For larger groups split them into teams and…

This is a great tool to be used for reviewing or even group discussions. You can use a stick or a bean bag (or almost any other distinctive object). Place the talking stick in the centre of the group. Pose a question to the group, when a participants has something to say on the subject they then take it from the centre, share their thoughts with the rest of the group and return it to the middle. Only the person holding the talking stick is permitted to speak (you can set a time limit if necessary). This tool allows people to consider and take…

This problem solving activity requires little more than a couple of sets of children’s building blocks or duplicate lego. The aim of the challenge is for each group to try and build an exact copy of a pre-built sculpture – the catch is only one person in each group can look at the model at a time and for only ten seconds. They then return back to their team and describe what they see. Equipment Required: Enough Children’s building blocks or duplicate lego for each group Space Required: Small. Indoors or outdoors. Group Size: Minimum of 4 Total Time: 25 minutes 5 minutes to…

Body Part Twister is great for getting people working together and energised, it is physical and needs participants to be comfortable leaning on each other. Call out different body parts, these are the only parts of the body the whole group can have touching the floor. Encourage everyone to work together to find a solution and balance on each other if they need to. For example, to a group of nine people you could call out four bums, two feet, one head, two hands, four knees. Call out the next set of instructions as soon as everyone is in position. Just remember…

What Is The Traffic Jam Game? Traffic Jam is a real, ‘Brain Buster’ that requires a lot thinking and communication. This challenge is very similar to a human chess game. The group is split in 2, with both sides working together to complete the challenge. Cooperation and planning are essential to complete this task. Equipment Required Cones/Floor Markers Solution (full solution available in The Team Building Activity Book) Space Required: Small. Indoors or outdoors. Group Size: 8-12 participants. No more than 20 (even numbers only) Total Time: 55 minutes 5 minutes to brief and set up 40 minutes to achieve outcome 10 minutes to review and debrief…

In smaller teams, blindfolded team members must be guided into a pen by the shepherd giving them verbal commands. The team that pens the most amount of sheep in the quickest time, wins the challenge. Equipment Required: Blindfolds, cones (for pen), and whistle (for indoors get your shepherd to make noises instead). Space Required: Medium. Outdoors or indoors (depending on space). Group Size: 6 to 10 ideally, but can be done with more split into smaller teams. Total Time: 40 minutes 5 minutes to brief 15 minutes of planning time 15 minutes to achieve the outcome (depending on the total number of participants allocate more…