Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Spaghetti And Marshmallow Tower – Youth Group Games

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Spaghetti and marshmallow tower
Image courtesy of bignoseduglyguy, Flickr

The Spaghetti And Marshmallow Tower is a classic youth group game that you may well have played as a young person yourself.

In case you’ve never played it (or forgotten how it’s done), here’s how to play it:

Resources

  • 1 pack of spaghetti per team
  • 1 pack of large marshmallows per team
  • Measuring tape

Preparation

One of the best things about this game is that there isn’t really any preparation that needs to be done! All you need to do is split the youth into teams and give each team a pack of spaghetti and a pack of marshmallows.

If you only have a small youth group, you could always have the young people do this activity individually. It’s a great team building activity though, so we’d suggest having them all work together rather than separately.

Rules

Teams have to build the tallest tower that they can using only the marshmallows and spaghetti. The tower has to be free-standing, so the young people aren’t allowed to support it once it’s completed.

Set a time limit that they have to finish their tower by. Warn them when they’re about 1 minute from the end so that they can ensure that their tower’s free-standing.

Winners

The winning team is the one that has the tallest spaghetti and marshmallow tower. If it’s not easily identifiable which is the tallest tower, use a measuring tape.

In the unlikely event that two teams have towers that are the exact same height, set up a tiebreaker. Teams have to pick up and move their construction to the other side of the room. The team with the tallest freestanding tower once it’s been moved is the winner. (n.b. players aren’t allowed to fix any breakages while it gets moved).

Talking Points

Not only is the spaghetti and marshmallow tower good as a team building activity, but it can also be used as a conversation starter for many different talking points. Here are some suggestions:

  • Having a firm foundation in life
  • Having balance in life
  • Working as a team
  • Setting goals
  • Supporting each other

If you liked this idea, check out all our other youth group games, including a number of marshmallow games.

Question: Do you play a different variation of the spaghetti and marshmallow tower? We’d love to hear any other ideas you have in the comments below.

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How To Use Toilet Paper As An Icebreaker

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Toilet paper icebreaker
Use this toilet paper icebreaker to get your youth group on a roll

Q: Due to the start of the school year, a lot of new young people have moved up into the youth group I lead. Do you have any good icebreakers I can use to help them get to know each other better?

A: The start of a new school year can be tough for youth groups as it can often mean that they go from the adjourning stage of group development to the forming stage.

Effective icebreakers can therefore be a great way to help the group form. One fun option is to use the toilet paper icebreaker – here’s how it works:

Resources

1 roll of toilet paper. If you have a very large group of young people, it may be worth splitting into smaller groups and giving each small group a roll each.

How to play the Toilet Paper Icebreaker

Have the group sit in a circle. One-by-one, pass around the roll of toilet paper and have each person take as much paper as they would normally use when using the restroom – this includes leaders!

When everyone has taken their share of toilet paper, advise them that for every square of paper they took, they have to tell the group something about themselves. i.e. If they took 8 pieces of paper, they would have to tell the group 8 things about themselves.

They can share anything they like, such as:

  • Favorite sport
  • Favorite band
  • How many brothers & sisters they have
  • Where they live
  • Other interests
  • Favorite food
  • Funniest thing that’s happened to them
  • Anyone famous they’ve met
  • What they want for Christmas
  • What pets they have
  • A country they’d love to travel to

They don’t have to go super-deep where they’re revealing their deepest and dark secrets, like the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to them; just whatever they’re comfortable with. Remember – at the forming stage, they still need to build up trust with each other.

Finding common ground

The Toilet Paper Icebreaker is also a great way to help emphasize similarities and common interests between the young people. After each person has shared about themselves, pick out one or two facts about them and see if anyone else in the group has similar interests or experiences. For example:

  • Bobby’s favorite sport is football – is that anyone else’s favorite sport?
  • Jenny loves Chinese food – who else loves to eat Chinese?
  • Andy has a dog – does anyone else own a dog?

Try to pick out the things that it’s likely other people will have similar interests in, rather than some of the more vague facts you’re likely to hear. This will help show the young people that despite differences between them, there are still common areas that they can agree on, helping set the group off on the right foot.

Check out our previous post on team building activities for further ideas on helping your youth group to gel, along with our other toilet paper games.

Question: What other interests/topics would you suggest young people share about when playing the Toilet Paper Icebreaker? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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Travel Scavenger Hunt

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Travel scavenger hunt
That’s Chilly, that’s Hungry, that’s Rusher and that’s Core Ear

Our scavenger hunt ideas are always popular posts, so here’s another one – a travel scavenger hunt.

This can be used as a standalone youth work session when you just want something fun to do, or it could be used in tandem with a world awareness session.

Here’s how to run a travel scavenger hunt:

Resources

  • Cameras (although cellphone cameras are fine)
  • Travel scavenger hunt list
  • Pens
  • Projector, screen & laptop to display all the scavenger hunt photos at the end
  • Prize(s) for the winning team

Instructions

Take your young people to a local shopping mall or high street. Split them into teams and send a leader with them. Although your group may be old enough to do this scavenger hunt without leaders, it’s a perfect opportunity to build relationships.

Provide each group with a copy of the travel scavenger hunt list (see below) and a pen – this is so that they can check off each item on the list as they go along. The purpose of this scavenger hunt is for them to take photos of all the items on the list but in a creative way (this will be explained in more detail below). Advise them that they can’t just take a photo of a country on a map or travel book, as this would be way too easy!

Your young people are going to be representing your youth group while they’re out and about, so remind them of your behavior policy, group agreement, etc. Also let them know of any particular boundaries for the scavenger hunt (e.g. must stay within the mall/must stay on the high street, etc).

Finally, arrange a time and location for them to all meet at the end. To make sure they arrive on time – or so that they don’t cheat by trying to spend more time than other groups taking photos – consider warning them that their team will be deducted 1 point for every minute that they’re late.

Travel Scavenger Hunt List

The list should consist of countries that they can take photos of in a creative way – this will often be based on how the country is pronounced phonetically, but not necessarily. Give the groups a few examples of what you mean by this, such as:

  • Oman – Take a photo of a group of women (i.e. zero man)
  • India – Take a photo of something inside Bambi (i.e. in deer)
  • Andorra – Take a photo of an Anne Of Green Gables book next to a Dora The Explorer book (i.e. Anne Dora)

Now that you have an idea of what we mean, here’s a list of 21 countries that work well as part of a travel scavenger hunt list:

  • Bahrain
  • Belize
  • Bhutan
  • Chile
  • China
  • Finland
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Hungary
  • Jordan
  • Kuwait
  • Mali
  • Moldova
  • Panama
  • Philippines
  • Russia
  • Singapore
  • Slovakia
  • South Korea
  • Togo
  • Turkey

Winners

As with most games, the team with the highest number of points at the end wins. However, there are two elements to the scoring with this scavenger hunt:

  • Teams should be awarded one point for each country they successfully take a photo of
  • Bonus points should be awarded based upon creativity, ingenuity, getting members of the public involved, etc

If you liked this idea, check out our other youth scavenger hunts and youth work session plan ideas. You may also like our sister site that has other travel scavenger hunt ideas.

We’ve also published a book with dozens of this type of activity – 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas. Pick up your copy from Amazon.

Questions: What other countries would you add to the travel scavenger hunt list? And how would you suggest the photos could be taken? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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Mall Photo Scavenger Hunt

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Mall photo scavenger huntEvery Thursday, we provide ideas for youth work sessions. These ideas are usually ways to explore various issues that young people face, but sometimes it’s good to run sessions that are just for fun.

This week’s session idea is a mall photo scavenger hunt – something that’s fun, but is also a perfect team-building and youth bonding activity. Here’s how to run it:

Resources

  • Cameras (cell phones cameras can also be used)
  • Mall photo scavenger hunt list (see below)
  • Pens
  • Projector, screen & laptop to display all the scavenger hunt photos
  • Prize(s) for the winning team

Instructions

Take your youth group to a shopping mall and split them into teams. Depending on their age, it might be fine to send them off in groups without leaders. However, this is a great opportunity for relationship building, so we’d still encourage you to have at least one leader with each group.

Give each group a copy of the list and a pen to check off as they go along. They need to find all of the items on the list and take photos of them.

As you’ll be out in a public area and representing your youth group, remind them about your group agreement, behavior policy, etc.

Decide ahead of time if the groups will be allowed to buy items for the photos. If so, consider giving them a small amount of money (e.g. $5 per group) for incidentals – that way there will be a level playing field for all the groups.

Advise the groups of a location to meet at the end and what time they should be there and send them off.

Mall Photo Scavenger Hunt List

This list should contain items that your young people will be able to find at the mall, but which will take some time to find. We’ve provided a list of possible items below to get started.

Also consider providing a list of a few bonus items on the scavenger hunt list for them to take photos of. The way the bonus points are allocated is completely up to you, but we’d recommend rewarding creativity, humor and ingenuity – that’s why the bonus suggestions below are more subjective photo ideas.

Regular Items

  • XL size blue T-shirt with white stripes
  • Ring costing $999
  • Hat with 3 flowers on it
  • CD with an album title of more than 10 words
  • Book with the Eiffel Tower on the front cover
  • Purple gloves
  • Necklace with a turtle on it
  • 5 different versions of Monopoly (can be in separate photos)
  • Pair of socks with at least 6 different colors on them
  • Birthday card for a 100 year old

Bonus Items

  • DVD with the strangest movie title
  • Funniest T-shirt design
  • Most pointless kitchen gadget
  • Largest cuddly toy you can find (with team member next to it to indicate size)

Winners

The team with the most points at the end are the winners, once all the bonus points have been taken into account.

If you liked this idea, we also have a separate scavenger hunt site that contains a number of other mall scavenger hunt ideas.

We’ve also published a book with loads of these activities, complete with lists that you can photocopy / print off (depending on what format you buy it in). Get your copy of 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas from Amazon or direct from us.

Question: What other items would you add to the mall photo scavenger hunt list? Share your ideas in the comments below.

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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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