Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Newspaper Tower Challenge – Youth Work Game

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Newspaper Tower ChallengeThe Newspaper Tower Challenge is a game I remember playing – and loving – when I was younger. It’s perfect when you want a team building game that involves all the young people in your youth group.

The way the newspaper business is going though, you may not have many more years to play this game!

Resources

  • Newspapers. Many, many newspapers
  • Sticky tape – one large roll per team
  • Scissors – one pair per team
  • Measuring tape

Time

You can expect the Newspaper Tower activity to take about 30 minutes in total. Allow approx. 5 minutes for explaining the activity, 20 minutes for them to work out their newspaper tower design and to build it, then 5 minutes at the end to measure all the different towers.

Set Up

Split the young people up into teams and give each team the same amount of newspapers and one large roll of sticky tape.

If you have the space, spread the teams out in different rooms so that they can’t copy each others’ design.

To Play

The challenge is for the young people to work out how to build a newspaper tower that’s the tallest. They can only build the tower using the newspapers, tape and scissors – no other resources are allowed.

The newspaper towers have to be free-standing – team members can’t support it or have it resting against a wall.

Set a time limit on how long they have to build the tower, including enough time for them to discuss a strategy before they start building.

Winner

The winning team is the one with the tallest tower. On the off-chance that you have two teams with towers that are the exact same height, there are a couple of tiebreaker options you can use:

1) Design – award the win to the team that you judge to have the best design. This can either be:

  • The most aesthetically pleasing newspaper tower design, or
  • The one that has the most creative design

2) Stability – award the win to the team that has the most stable structure. There are a couple of ways of doing this too:

  • Make the teams carry their tower into another room and place it on the floor without being allowed to reconstruct it if it comes apart. The team which then has the tallest tower wins
  • Set up a desk fan to blow against each tower, starting with the lowest speed. The winning team is the one whose tower can withstand a stronger wind than the other

If you like this idea, check out our other youth work games.

Question: Do you play the Newspaper Tower Challenge in a different way to this? If so, let us know what you do differently in the comments below.

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Image courtesy of binarydreams, Flickr

 

Good Team Building Activities For Teenagers

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Team building activities for teenagersQ: I’m working with a new group of youth – what are some good team building activities for teenagers?

A: Often, at the start of a new group or after major changes (graduation, new youth worker coming in or a significant rift/trauma within the group, etc), it can be beneficial to spend significant time, energy and resources doing team building activities before moving on to or back to ‘regularly scheduled programming.’

There are three ways you can build team cohesion and help develop your youth group further. Some require little or no money and very little time; some require a bit more time and money while others require a significant contribution of time and money.

Option 1 – Limited Time and Resources

You can just add some team building games into your regular programming. Take a few minutes at the start of every session to play a game and take the time to reflect together.

Most of the following games require little or no preparation and utilize items that are readily available in most organizations or at your home:

Take it a step further

You can combine a few activities and icebreakers to create an entire session of team building activities that work well with teenagers and can dovetail into your regular programming.

Option 2 – Some Time and Resources

Through fundraising, or having the youth contribute small amounts of money, you could plan an overnight lock-in focused on team building and group bonding. Watch films, play games, do team building activities and create memories.

Take it a step further

Hold a team building youth retreat that takes place over an entire 2-3 day weekend. Organize team building activities, do all the fun activities you could provide at a lock-in and include small group sessions that allow teens to explore social and emotional issues – this will allow them to get to know one another better. You may even want to include a community service project to help the students create camaraderie while helping others.

Option 3 – More Time and Resources

Go on a residential or week long overnight team building camp. You can go to activity centers where you choose and lead your own activities or there are others that have programs led by the center staff based on the types of skills you’re working to build. These can be pricey and require more time, so consider fundraising efforts, grants and scholarships.

Take it a step further

With the help of fundraising and/or youth contributions, take your teenagers on a week-long mission trip or service project overseas. This will take some time, but the planning stages also help with team building.

Activities that you do there can help youth learn more about themselves, about other cultures and about each other. They may also learn a new skill in the process!

Other Ideas

For even more great activities, check out our other site for some great team building scavenger hunt ideas.

Question: What team building activities for teenagers do you use? Give your thoughts in the comments below.

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Egg Drop Game – Youth Work Game

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Egg Drop Game
Egg Drop Game Fail

The Egg Drop Game is perfect for all your youth group to take part in – it uses their creative side and ingenuity, plus it can be a great team building activity.

They may have done a similar activity in a physics class, but this version of the Egg Drop Game levels the playing field as they all have to use the same materials.

Materials

The Egg Drop Game can use all kinds of different materials – there’s no set items you have to use, other than a few essentials (like eggs!). Here are some suggestions for Egg Drop Game materials though:

  • Eggs (enough for one per team, plus a few extras in case they get broken during the building stage)
  • Tarp / drop cloth
  • Newspaper
  • Sticky tape
  • Paper clips
  • Cereal box
  • Scissors
  • Drinking straws

To Play

Split the youth into smaller groups (or individuals if you only have a few young people) and give each team the same materials (not including the drop cloth).

The task of the Egg Drop Game is to build a structure that can fit an egg inside and protect it when dropped from a height of six feet. They can use any or all of the materials to build the structure, but it has to be built within a certain time limit.

Winner

The winner of the Egg Drop Game can be based on a number of factors:

Unbroken – The egg doesn’t break when the structure is dropped. If you only have one team that manages this, they’re the winner. There’s a good chance though that either multiple teams will succeed or none will. If that’s the case, take into account these other factors……

Design – Award bonus points for an attractively designed structure

Ingenuity – Award bonus points for a design that you think is ingenious for whatever reason

Greater heights – The winner can be decided based on whoever has earned the most bonus points based on design and ingenuity. If things are still even by this point though, re-drop the structures from an even greater height – continue doing this until there’s just one unbroken egg.

Tips

  • The Egg Drop Game can take quite a long time, so be sure to allocate enough time for the youth to come up with a design, build it, refine it, etc. It might even take up most of your youth work session, but can be a great game if your session is about team-building, creative thinking, etc
  • Put a drop cloth down before the actual Egg Drop, in case the structures aren’t quite as solid as the youth had been hoping for!

Check out our other youth group games for more great activities.

Question: What other materials are good for the Egg Drop Game? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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The Mat Turn Game – Youth Group Game

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The Mat Turn game - youth work gameThe Mat Turn game is a great game to play when resources are limited and as a way to encourage your youth group to work as a team.

Resources

Piece of fabric, blanket or large piece of paper (mark one side with a marker or piece of paper with an X – this way you can tell when the group has turned the mat over)

The Mat Turn Rules

  1. Have the group stand on the mat
  2. Explain that using teamwork, they must turn over the mat without stepping off. If they touch the floor or another object outside the mat (e.g. a chair, table, wall, etc), they must start over from the beginning

The Mat Turn Solution

The mat can be turned over at the corner, with members of the group stepping on it as it flips over. Alternatively, a corner can be brought across the mat and stepped on little by little by group members – see an example and printable sheet here.

Suggestions

(n.b. Don’t give these hints too soon)

Suggest that by standing on one foot, they can get closer together and have ‘less’ on the mat, thereby making more room to move the mat around.

You can also use positive sounds and gestures to one or two group members who make suggestions that are correct.

The Mat Turn game is a great communication or team-building game, particularly when a youth group is forming. You can also go over Hopes And Fears at the start of a new youth group coming together.

If you like this game, you might like our other youth group game ideas.

Question: How would you use the Mat Turn game in your youth group? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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The Human Knot Game – Youth Group Game

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The Human Knot Game - youth group gameThe Human Knot game is an oldie but a goodie for many youth workers, but for those that don’t know how to play this youth group game, here are the directions:

Resources

People!

Objective

Untangle the circle without letting go of each others hands

The Human Knot Rules

  1. Have your group stand in a circle (n.b. This game is difficult to play with more than 12 young people. If you have a larger youth group, split them into several smaller groups to play)
  2. Everyone puts their hands into the center
  3. Instruct them to grab 1 other person’s hand with one hand and then grab another person’s hand with the other. The rules for grabbing hands:
    • It cannot be the person directly beside them
    • It cannot be both the hands of the same person
  4. Once everyone is holding hands, they need to try and untangle themselves without letting go of anyone’s hands – they may need to duck down, climb over and spin around.
  5. Everyone may not be facing inward at the end and that’s OK; as long as the circle is untangled and everyone’s hands are linked but by their sides, it is complete.
The Human Knot game can be used for team building, problem-solving, as an icebreaker or just for fun.

I’ve also had it suggested, by youth workers in Rwanda, that it would be a good game to play with young people dealing with issues of HIV and AIDS (it would also work well with other types of prejudice and intolerance). In Rwanda, some of the youth are unwilling to touch or be near young people with HIV/AIDS because they’re afraid they would ‘catch it’. This could therefore be an excellent game to get them touching and interacting in an appropriate and fun way.

If you like this game idea, check out our other youth group games.

Question: How has playing The Human Knot game benefited your youth group? Do you use it to teach any lessons? Let us know in the comments below.

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