team building Activities

In order to create an effective team, there must first be a strong family-like community. The following are several activities that will be introduced to the new group of mentors and metee runners to create a comfortable, trusting, and compatible team environment.

Snakes

One of the several activities to increase team building will be a trust and communicating activity called  "snakes." In this activity all members of one group are blindfolded while the person in the very back is not. The non-blindfolded person communicates to the other members where objects are throughout the gym so that they can find them. The object is to find the objects without speaking to one another and place them in different buckets throughout the gymnasium without using verbal communication. Click the link for a more detailed description.

Team Skis

In this activity there will be several sets of large skis that teams will use to reach a certain destination. Communication is key in order to move slowly without falling. Click the link to see it in action.

Minute To Win It

This team building activity involves 7 different competitions involving cups. These activities can be used using several different teams and may be altered in order to accomodate the number of people participating. The names of each competition are as follows:

This Blows-Slide 15 plastic cups off the edge of a table using the air from an inflated balloon. Continue blowing up the balloon and squeezing the air out to send the cups flying until all of the cups have fallen.

Movin' On Up-In order to win Movin' On Up, players must take one cup from the top of the stack and move it to the bottom with one hand, then repeat the process with the other hand. The game continues in this way until the red cup has gone through the entire stack of cups and resumes its original place at the bottom.

Cup Collection-Place 36 standard-size plastic drinking cups into a perfectly aligned triangular tower and then take the cups down one diagonal line at a time. Restack the cups as you dismantle the tower. Complete this task in 1 minute or less to win the game.

Flip Your Lid-The contestant must flip an inverted plastic cup onto the neck of a glass bottle positioned 12 inches (30 cm) away.

Cup Ballet-In this game one contestant flips a standard-size drinking cup towards another teammate that is holding a standard sized soda bottle. While keeping their back foot stationary, they must catch the cup onto the top of the bottle within 1 minute to win.

Yank Me-The contestant must place four cups upside down on a table, each cup with an index card over it. They must then yank out the index cards so that the cups collapse into a four cup stack. If it falls over, it may be re-stacked.

Stack Attack-Place 36 standard-size plastic drinking cups into a perfectly aligned triangular tower and then take the cups down one diagonal line at a time.Restack the cups as you dismantle the tower. Complete this task in 1 minute or less to win the game.

Click on the link below to watch examples of youth competing against each other in each of the above competitions.