Teamwork activities help in respecting the uniqueness of every member in the team, and in understanding the importance of cooperation. Here are various team building activities and games for kids and adults.
In a team, every individual's contribution, as well as the collective thoughts of the entire group are important. Team building activities make it possible for everyone in the group to participate and allow them to understand better, the strengths and weaknesses of other people.
Teamwork Activities for Kids
Mental Hide and Seek
For this activity, the kids are asked to look around the room (or wherever you are holding your activities), and think of one place they would hide. Then the whole group tries to guess where each person is hiding.
To make it more interesting, you could allow the kids to decide what size they would like to be, for example, the size of a cat, and where they might now be hiding.
Fitting In
Make three circles on the ground, each one smaller than the other. The aim of this team building activity is for the whole group to try to fit into each of the circles. If they can do it for the first circle, they can proceed to level 2, that is the second circle.
If they manage that too then they should try to fit into the third circle. This activity teaches them to adjust and accommodate each member for improved teamwork.
Pass on the Move
This is for a group of up to six children. One person starts the game by doing any kind of action, like, waving or snapping his fingers. This 'move' is then passed on to the person next to him, who does the move and another additional one of his own, before passing both on to the next person in line, and it goes on as long as they can remember all the moves.
Teamwork Activities for Youth
Electricity
This game needs you to make groups with equal number of people, which stand in two lines facing each other. At the end of the line is an object that needs to be picked up. The catch is that everybody except the first person in both lines, have to keep their eyes closed, and needs to hold each others hands, with both lines face to face.
Now the 'referee' tosses a coin and shows the result to both the first members of each group. Only if it shows heads, a signal is given to the next person in line by squeezing his/her palm, and they must similarly pass on this signal to the next one in line, till the last person who must then run, and pick up the object at the end of the line.
The team to get the ball first wins. If a wrong signal is passed, and the team ends up picking the object, then they lose a point. In this way, you can play many rounds till a certain score is reached to decide the winner.
Positivity
Youth is a time of insecurity and doubts, and words of encouragement always help. For this activity, write the names of everyone in the group on separate pieces of paper, and ask everyone to write a positive trait of the person whose name is written.
Ask them to be creative, and if they want they could share any incidents along with their statement. There is no need to mention who wrote the thoughts, but do make sure that no one writes any negative thoughts or repeats the ideas of other people. Then, the paper be given to everyone so that they can be encouraged by all the good words about themselves.
Reactions
This is a charades game, where a person from each group is given a situation, which he must react to. The group is supposed to guess the situation that he is acting out.
You could ask the members to write their own situations creatively, such as winning an Oscar or being followed by a cop, or any other creative situation that the selected members will have to enact. Watching the funny and weird expressions, actions of the actors, and the attempts by their group to guess the answers, etc., is a lot of fun
Teamwork Activities for Adults
Introductions
This is a fun method of introducing a new team, or even as a start to team bonding activities. The group preferably sits in a circle, and the first person starts by introducing themselves, but with an adjective before their name.
So it could be something like, "Hi everyone, My name is Smoking Steven", The next person should have to reply, including the person's name and the adjective, which could be something like, "Hello, Smoking Steven, I'm Tough Joe".
The third person will now have to use both these names and adjectives, which would sound like this, "Hello, Smoking Steven and Tough Joe, I'm Pretty Jane". So this chain keeps getting longer and longer, and is pretty hilarious by the time it gets to the end. It helps everyone get introduced in an easy and fun manner.
The Apprentice
Organize a time-based challenge, and if possible, a chance of winning a reward. All the teams will definitely have a lot of fun and will learn a lot in the process.
Teamwork activities are one of the best ways to ensure a healthy atmosphere within a group, and they help in fostering understanding, patience, and mutual respect among all the members, and helping them bond as a team.