Advice for leading an FLL team?

[caroline.m]

I know this is after most of the regional competitions for FLL this season (found the thread looking for ideas for my team), but the team I mentor has had some similar issues to begin with. We ended up trying to do a different core values focused activity the last 30 minutes of their meeting, which I think helped them figure out some important parts of being a team. We started them by having them get in line in order of when their birthday is, but told them they couldn't talk or make noise. If I have a day when I don't know what to do, I look up generic team building activities and try to adapt it to them. As far as being an example to them, I try to give them suggestions on how they can help each other rather than arguing and redirect energy from the moment of conflict to whatever they are supposed to be doing. You could also try talking to them about how they use core values outside of the team or have them share where they saw core values being used during the meeting that day. Don't worry too much though- with this age it's hard to be totally conflict free.