Pro-D days are a great time for us to work with teachers, whether doing a team building workshop (a variation of the corporate team building workshops we do, with this tailored specifically for teachers), to increase collaboration and communication amongst the staff, or on tips and techniques for presenting and engaging in the classroom (presentation skills for teachers)…but there are also fun team building activities for the classroom that teachers can use as a tool for helping students to learn to work together, unleash their creativity, support each other, and become more adept at actively listening.
And of course, they’re also great for connecting the students and building trust with each other.
Here are a couple of team building activities you can roll out at any time of the school year, and for any age group. They’re going to have fun, bond with classmates and feel more at ease with the group.
Team Building Activities for the Classroom:
1) Word at a Time Place the group into teams of say four or five, or larger even…..introduce a topic. It could be planning the school sports day, or going to the aquarium, or a fun field trip…once you have the topic, each group is to create a story. And they’ll do this by having each student in the group contribute one word at a time. So one student will say a word, then the next will add a word, and so on.
Together they’ll build the full story.
After several rounds stop the activity and then have each group tell the rest of the class where they ended up.
There’ll be a lot of shared laughter while each team is creating the story, and definitely after from everyone as each team recounts where their stories ended up.
2) Freeze Tag Split the class into groups of around six and they can make a large circle. Two students will step into the middle, while the rest stay in their spots.
Ask the students who aren’t in the middle for a “location” and an “activity”. So it might be volleyball at the beach.
The two students in the middle will then start to act this out, pantomiming whatever they wish to incorporate into the scene.
“Freeze!” – after the first two have had enough time to set the scenario and create the situation, the other students in the group can now get involved. All they need to do is shout out “freeze”, and the two in the middle will stand motionless in the position they were in as freeze was called. Whoever called out "freeze" enters the middle and taps (on the shoulder) whoever they want to replace in the scene. Recreating the same pose, which usually makes for a lot of fun. Then the scene can shift to being something completely different – something completely new.
And it just keeps going with students from the group yelling freeze and coming in with their new ideas.
Try these fun team building activities for the classroom the next chance you get. Your students will have a lot of fun and so will the teachers.
If you’re interested in learning more about our Pro D Day workshops, or Team Building for Teachers, contact either one of us to learn more - Alex at Alex@improvtoimprove.org or Kayce at Kayce@improvtoimprove.org
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