Eight Team Builders for the Beginning of the Year

Building connections that first week of school is vital in building the foundation of trust. Team building activities are a way to start paving the way to having a community within the classroom.

Listen to the full episode to learn about 8 team building activities.

The Full Transcript for Episode 39

Are you ready for this upcoming school year, whether you’ve already started or it’s just around the corner, the number one thing that sets the tone and the foundation of your school year is relationships. Relationships are the most powerful tool within your classroom. And I like to make it a priority during the first few weeks of school to intentionally build in team activities, because not only is the relationship between me and the students important, but it’s also vital that students get comfortable with each other as well. So in today’s episode, I’m going to be sharing a handful of team builder activities that I use in my classroom that you can use to, let’s get started.

What is the podcast episode about?

Welcome to Solving for the Undefined podcast. I’m your host, Johanna, founder of Miss Kuiper’s Classroom, the place that equips teachers and creating a healthy math classroom where students can thrive, no matter their academic abilities. But it’s not always about the numbers. And that’s why I’m here, bringing you the formulas to solve your problems, math and otherwise, plus strategies on cultivating that necessary math mindset. And that’s what you can count on.

Hello, welcome to episode 39. I’m super excited for today’s episode, because in years past, I have not prioritized team building the way I should have. And building connections those first couple weeks of school is vital for building that foundation of trust. So I wanted to share with you some low prep activities that I’ve used in the past and continue to use that have really helped shape our community in the classroom. To start us off, let’s just go ahead and define team building. Team building is the process of getting a group of students to work together effectively. Now, within the umbrella of team building, I find that there are three categories. One, students getting to know each other, to students working towards a common goal, and three students learning to trust each other. Now, of course, a team building activity can incorporate more than one of these things. But by introducing scenarios to groups that relate to at least one of these three points, you are helping them increase productivity cohesiveness, efficiency community etc.

1. Team Builders for Getting to Know Each Other

Now thinking about the beginning of a school here, you might use more team building activities that have the goal of students getting to know each other. So I have three that I’m going to share with you that you can use within your classroom.

A to Z, Get to Know Me

So the first one is A to Z it get to know me. Now this activity is something that I created that has 26 wacky, serious and funny questions for students who kind of get to know each other within their group. And the questions are all based on the alphabet. So there’s an a question, a B question, a C question and all the questions start with that letter. And then students will answer questions based on the letters in their name. So inside of your group of three or four, depending on your classroom, you’re going to have a student start with the first letter of their name, and students will answer the corresponding question. So one of my favorite questions is q and O. And a lot of students don’t have Q in their name, but let’s pretend they do. So the letter Q question says, Queen of England grants you knighthood. What did you do to deserve it? And then that student would answer the question, and then the next unit would go using the question that corresponds to the letter of their first name. And then they will continue around in a circle until all the letters of their name are used, or the timer runs out, depending on whichever happens first. One thing I found with this activity is if I give students a copy of it ahead of time, and give them time to circle all of the questions that correspond to their name, and give them time to process them. Because some of the questions are really wacky, like the Queen of England grads who knighthood What did you do to deserve it? Instead of having that awkward or seemingly awkward pause inside of a group where students can start to feel self conscious? giving them time with the paper first, will help them answer those questions or have answers to those questions. So it becomes more of a seamless fun process than an on the spot kind of thing. If this is something that you’re interested in implementing in your classroom, it’s in my Teachers Pay teacher’s store or on my website, it’s only $1 or you can purchase it as part of my back to school activity bundle.

Mystery Student

Moving into the second get to know you kind of activity is mystery student. Now this is something I adapted from mystery teacher that we did at a conference I attended this past summer. So the way it works is you are given a slip of paper that has a place for your initials. Not your name, just your initials. And then three questions. One, what state were you born in? Or you could adapt it to? What city were you born in? And then number two, what is your favorite subject in school? And three, what is one interesting fact no one else in this class knows about you yet.

On its own, those questions aren’t very exciting. But here’s where the interesting part comes in. After every student has written on their papers and turn them in, then you are going to select one of them. And then you’re going to have every student stand to say the car that you pulled had the answers, Oregon math, and I went snorkeling with turtles in Hawaii. So here’s what the mystery student might sound like.

“Alright, it’s time for mystery student everyone stand up. All right, remain standing if you were born in a state that starts with a vowel. Remain standing if your favorite subject in school is math, remain standing if you snorkel with turtles, tell us about that experience.”

And most likely, you will only have one student remaining after you’ve read that third question. And then that student can expand on their interesting fact. And this part can help a little bit alleviate the awkwardness or timidness. Some students have about speaking in front of the class, it’s something they’ve experienced, they know and can be a nice little gateway into being able to present better within their class. And then the way we did it at the conference with mystery teacher was they did one at like the end of class or when there was a break when they needed a brain break. So it’s not doing all of them at the one time, it’s spreading them out over maybe the first week or first two weeks. However time allows within your classroom. So that is mystery student.

Skit-Tells (Skittles)

Now let’s move into the third kind of get to know you teambuilder activity, and that is with skip tell, or Skittles, but you know, skip tell because you’re going to tell something about yourself. Now, you can use those little tiny packets of Skittles and give one per group. Or you can get the big bag like Costco and just give a little cup full to each group from whatever you gave your students are going to portion it out or split it evenly among their group. And then you’re going to have a list of questions that correspond to the colors of the Skittles on the screen, it can be something like red is skit tell us something fun you did this summer, or oranges tell us about someplace cool you visited. Yellow could be tell us something you’ve tried for the first time in green could be tell us about your favorite thing to do. And then purple could be tell us something no one else in your group knows about you. So it’s very low risk, very easy to do, I’d say it’s probably a very short get to know you kind of thing. And very low prep, kids get to eat Skittles, they always love that. And those are the three kinds of students getting to know each other teambuilder activities.

2. Team Builders for Working Towards a Common Goal

moving into the ones where students have a common goal, they’re working together towards something.

The 100 Numbers to Get Students Talking

Now the first one I like to use, I typically do this on the second day of school is the 100 numbers to get students talking. Or I’ve heard some people call it the number hunt. But it’s that one piece of paper that has numbers from one to 100 on it and each group is going to get a paper.

100 number

And then every student within that group needs a different color highlighter or marker. And groups have about three minutes to find all of the numbers one to 100 in sequential order. And they’ll take turns highlighting. So if I’m starting, I’ll highlight in pink, next person in yellow, then green and blue, and then back to me highlighting in pink. And then it continues around as fast as we can to try to get to the highest number possible. And you do it in three rounds. So after that first round, you’ll have them pause, you’ll take all the numbers from the groups to see who got the highest, and then ask them to come up with a strategy of how they could do better next time. And then you have them completed again. And then after the second round, you can tell them there’s a pattern to the numbers and see if they can kind of figure it out. And then you’ll complete a third round. Now I have seen some teachers just do it in two and after the first one, they tell them that there’s a pattern and then do the second round. i This typically takes between 20 minutes to the full class period. I like to take it as long as possible because kids really enjoy this and it gets them talking and it gets them really working together towards getting the highest number possible. If you haven’t seen this activity before, I’m going to spoil it for you so if you don’t want spoilers, skip ahead. But once students start to see the pattern, the reason why they view As different colors is, then it becomes apparent that all of their colors are in one quadrant. So then they can see all of the pinks are in one corner, all of the yellows are in the next corner, all of the greens and blues are in separate corners, and then it becomes an easier round for them to know where their numbers gonna be. So instead of looking at the whole paper, now they’re only looking in one section.

This is an activity I got from Sarah Van Der Werf, I found her blog post and I got it from there. And I will link that in the description as well as the show notes on my website. But one of the really cool things that I found out this time around is she has a new printable, meaning you can get it for a group of three or a group of four. So it still has that nice divide of they’re all their numbers are going to be in one section, but it helps for groups of three and groups of four.

The Marshmallow Tower Challenge

And up next we have the marshmallow tower challenge. Now, there are two versions. And I suggest the one that I’m actually going to be talking about today because I have a horror story about the other kind. So the kind I’m going to be talking about today is where students build the tallest freestanding structure that can hold a marshmallow on the top. Not to be confused with the marshmallow challenge where you build a tower using marshmallows and spaghetti. That is an absolute disaster, you will have spaghetti and squished marshmallows everywhere, your classroom will be super sticky. And it is not a fun time do not do that one. But this one, they get like 20 pieces of uncooked spaghetti, a yard of string, a yard of tape. And one normal giant sized marshmallow once you give your students the supplies, they only have 18 minutes to complete the tallest freestanding tower. Now, it’s an interesting idea because it forces them to collaborate quickly to get to their end goal. And every team approaches it a little differently. Some take time to brainstorm what they’re gonna build, some just jump right in. So you want to make sure you don’t preface it with anything other than you’re building the tallest freestanding tower possible that holds the marshmallow on top, you want to see where students take it from the directions that you give, then you as the teacher after the 18 minutes will go and measure the towers that are still standing. Now the interesting thing and don’t tell your kids to test it as they go. That’s something that they need to figure out on their own. But some of them will not test it the entire time they’re building until the 18 minutes are up, and then their tower falls down because it doesn’t actually hold the marshmallow. So after the 18 minutes, you’ll go around and measure the towers that are still standing and then clap for the team that has the highest tower. Then you have to follow it up with the TED Talk video that I will link in the description. I don’t know how to pronounce his name, but it’s like Tom Wujec. You can look it up on Google followed up by watching that video together as a class. It really gives some good insight into design and failure. And my biggest takeaway from watching this video is an experiment they did with this marshmallow tower challenge. They incentivize the team having the tallest tower will receive a $10,000 prize. Now, after the 80 minutes, guess what happened? None of the teams had a standing tower. And it gives this interesting perspective that high stakes have a strong impact and not necessarily a positive one. And then they continue to explain some more things about the marshmallow challenge and the impact of making a prototype and trying things out over and over to get a good final result. All that to say make sure you watch the video after doing the marshmallow tower challenge.

Guess that Slogan Activities

All right moving into this third kind of activity that helps students towards a common goal is these guests this logon activities. Now, these are something of my own creation. And I’ve made a ton of varieties regarding these guests as logon activities. So the way it works is students are given slogans for a brand. So let’s say cereal. In the cereal slogan activity, students are given 14 Cereal slogans. And they have to either come up with what cereal goes with that slogan, or you can use the one that has a word bank, and then they would match it, say we have the slogan, be happy, be healthy, they would have to match Cheerios up with it. And as teams go through the slogans, I allow them to check in with me, and I’ll check off the ones they have correct. And then they’ll go back with their team and discuss the ones that they don’t have correct. I find this to be a very low risk activity, because it’s just cereal, candy, fast food, restaurants, etc. It has nothing to do with their actual quote, unquote, smartness. And I find that this really will help students work together, I typically do this as a timed race. So whichever team gets them all correct first wins. Or you can do it as whoever has the most correct within a set amount of time wins. And then I give that team a prize. Sometimes I’ll do it as if we’re doing the cereal slogan, I’ll give them a little box of cereal. Or if we’re doing the candy slogan, when they’ll get a piece of candy, you can kind of make it fun like that, or just give them a prize or a round of applause if you want. So those are the activities for students working towards a common goal.

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3. Team Builders for Learning to Trust Each Other

Cup Stacking Challenge

Now let’s move into the ones where they have to trust each other. The first one is the cup stacking challenge. So this is the one where you give students red solo cups and a rubber band with string on it four pieces of string tied to the rubber band. And they have to stack the cups in a certain design, only using the rubber band and they cannot touch the cups, I recently got to be a participant in this one. And it was hard work. Now the way I do it might be a little different than some people do it. But I assign a role to each student. Now these are the team roles that I talked about back in episode 20. If you want to take a listen to that, if you don’t use the specific roles, ID you can either skip this step or just replace it with like team member one, team member two team member three, team member four etc. Then based on their role, they’ll get a certain piece of the puzzle. So for example, the facilitator would have the rules for the activity. And the resource manager might have the card that has all the supplies needed, the task manager might have what the first levels and goal is like what the design should look like. While the reporter recorder has the reflection piece that they need to complete after the first round, the version I use has four different levels that students can complete. So the first level I think, is a two stacked cups together, and then a three to one pyramid with two stacked cups on the other side. And then the level two as a 4321 pyramid. And then the next one is some sort of variation where they have to actually flip the cup. So it’s one cup facing down with a cup facing up on top. And then the level four is a pyramid again, but the bottom row is all the cups facing up. The second row is all of them facing down, and then two cups up and then one cup down. So they really have to work together to get that flipped on and talk about it. And it’s a work in progress. Plus, if they have a cup that falls to the ground, they can not use their hands, they have to use the string tool to pick it up. That happened a couple of times to my group when we were doing this challenge. And we quickly made sure that we never dropped a cup again because of how much effort it was to actually pick it up off the ground.

Building Shapes with Yarn

And then the last team building activity I have for you is building yarn shapes. So this is one where you have a team work with a single loop of yarn. So before class, you’ll tie the ends of like an eight foot length of yarn together to make a really large loop. And I suggest having a few extra loops just in case a team makes a really big knot that they can undo or breaks. Just have extras just in case. And then you’re going to put some 3d shapes on the board. I like to have maybe five on the board. And then teams can work in any order.

So I always have them start with something simple like a five pointed star and then maybe work into a triangular pyramid and then one that’s where a triangular pyramid on top Up in bottom, or a cube, and then some really fancy shape, I’ll put the pictures a link to the pictures in the description. So you can kind of see what I’m talking about. But after they make one of the shapes successfully, they’ll call you over to show off their accomplishment. And then they can move into the next shape, I have found that it’s a lot easier to do this with four people rather than three. Because most of the shapes that I have students do have four corners. And when you have a person in each corner, it makes it a lot easier to accomplish than with a group of three. So I know I preach groups of three as being what I use in my classroom. But I make an exception for this one because it is a lot more challenging with just three people. And that’s what I have for you today.

Summary

And that’s what I have for you today. So in summary, the activities we talked about,

Students getting to know each other.

A to Z, Get to Know Me
Mystery Student
Skit-Tell (Skittles)

Students working towards a common goal.

The 100 Numbers to Get Students Talking
The Marshmallow Tower Challenge
Guess that Slogan Activity

Students are learning to trust each other.

Cup Stacking Challenge
Building Yarn Shapes

And if I had to give one last piece of advice going into your school year or continuing with the beginning of your school year, is don’t overlook team building the rest of the school year. I know we push it a lot at the beginning because we’re trying to create that community within our classrooms. But we have to not neglect it throughout the rest of the year as well. So do some of these now. Try them again, or do some new ones. As the school year goes on.

If you have other fabulous team building activities that you use within your classroom, please send them my way. I’m always wanting to learn more. Because I love team building activities. I think there’s so much fun.

And with that, I’ll calc-u-later.

Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. To find all the links and resources to things talked about in this episode, head on over to misskuipersclassroom.com and click on podcast

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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About Me

Hi! I’m Johanna Kuiper.

As a middle school math teacher, my goal is to help your students gain confidence in their math abilities. And to help you do that too.