Team building sctivities

[Kevin Leonard]

At our first meeting of every fall, we do some sort of team-building exercise that also helps the newbies understand coopertition. My favorite is:
We split the kids up into 4 teams. We tell them that their goal is to get all the tennis balls we spread out over the floor into their hula hoop circle. After some time, they realize that if they're all trying to get the balls into their hula hoop only, no one will ever get all of them.
Eventually someone thinks "Hey, what if we combined our hula hoops?"
When all four teams put their hula hoops together, and put the balls into the hula hoop, they all achieved the task- get all the balls into the hula hoop.
What the activity does is help the students think in a different manner than they're used to. Instead of competing selfishly, they learn to win graciously.