These games aim to emphasise the relationship between fun and real life, while also supporting and fostering the solidarity created among participants throughout the lesson. The conclusion of the lesson encourages players to recognise the importance of completing a task successfully and stimulates them to reflect on the issues in their ordinary lives – which follow after the end of the Team-building session.

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16.1. Let’s Make a Storm!

Game Rules: Everyone sits on chairs, benches, or on the floor, with their hands empty and their feet firmly planted on the ground.

The instructor will say: “Sometimes we feel like doing something seemingly impossible”, or “Right now, we’re going to perform a miracle: we’ll create a storm”. Then the instructor will instruct the players to copy what he does when he looks at them, and to continue that action until the instructor looks at them again and does something else (i.e., each player starts and finishes each action separately, not all at once).

1. It starts with a whistling like the wind: Shhhhhhh!
2. Then the instructor looks at each player in turn, rubbing their hands together.
3. Then the instructor looks at each player in turn, periodically snapping their fingers.
4. Then the instructor looks at each player in turn, clapping out of rhythm.
5. Then the instructor looks at each player in turn, slapping their knees.
6. Then the instructor looks at each player in turn, stomping their feet on the floor.
7. Then repeat all the gestures but in reverse order!

It can end with the statement: “Well, now you know how to do something special, fantastic – how to create a storm. Our common activity will never end. Let’s go and change the world for the better!”, after which the lesson ends and the participants are free.

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16.2. The Network

Materials Needed: A ball of string (thin, coloured).

Game Rules: The group sits in a circle. A player takes the ball of string, explains out loud why they like the group, holds onto the end of the string, and then throws the ball to another participant, unraveling it. The next participant catches the string, explains why they like the group, and then throws the ball to someone else. And so on, until the remaining string returns to the first player, so that all players are holding onto the string and it is unraveled in a zigzag from one to another. The network thus formed illustrates the relationships between all members of the group.

Variations: The player announces the name of the person they will throw the ball to and specifies a reason why they appreciate them, then throws the ball. The statement can be about the contribution of the person in front to the success of the collective activity, or general appreciation for that person. After everyone is connected by the string, the instructor takes scissors and cuts the string between each pair of players, explaining: “at the end of the session (lesson), each participant receives a piece of string that will always remind them of the friends they made here and the things they learned.”

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16.3. Choose a Souvenir

Materials Needed: Small objects: toys, postcards, figurines, trinkets (procured from a market, etc.).

Game Rules: The objects are placed in the middle of the room, and the players are invited to choose three of them, which best represent each person’s experience with the rest of the group during the lesson. Next, each player takes turns placing one, two, or all three objects in a pile, explaining aloud what the object suggested to them, related to the events of the session. In the end, each person takes home one object as a souvenir from the lesson/course.

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16.4. Like the Leaves of a Tree

Materials Needed: A large sheet of paper, pens, a marker, a roll of adhesive tape, “leaves” cut from thick paper (approximately A5 size).

Game Rules: The instructor draws on the large sheet of paper (hung on a wall) a tree, with its components: trunk, roots, branches, leaves, fruits, etc. Players sitting in a circle around the drawn board receive a “leaf” and a pen with which they will write on the “leaf” a thought or a lesson they take away from the lesson. Each player then attaches their leaf with a piece of adhesive tape to the tree drawn on the board, in a place they find most suitable with the written thought: at the root, on the trunk, on a branch, like a leaf, etc.

The instructor concludes the activity by commenting on both the thoughts written on the “leaves” and the places where they were placed, emphasizing the symbolism and importance of each part (roots, trunk, etc.) for the overall tree (group).

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16.5. Group Massage

Materials Needed: None.

Game Rules: At the end of the lesson, when people are more tired, the players form a circle facing their neighbour’s back. Then everyone starts massaging the shoulders of the person in front. Discussions are encouraged. After a while, everyone rotates 180º and massages the person in front (who massaged them before).

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16.6. Group Hug

Materials Needed: None.

Game Rules: A very good action for closure. Participants sit in a circle facing the centre. At the instructor’s command, everyone leans forward until their heads touch and they put their hands around the neck/waist of their neighbours – thus embracing the group.

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16.7. What’s He Like?

Materials Needed: A list of pleasant adjectives: nice, strong, calm, good, shy, happy, active, cheerful, polite, intelligent, friendly, energetic, organised, courageous, honest, clever, inventive, reserved, enthusiastic, benevolent, aggressive, thoughtful, determined, convincing, content, sensitive, creative, independent, merry, ironic, pleasant, calm, confident, attentive, perseverant, kind, capable, tidy, restless, unruly, grateful, etc. written on A4 sheets, in equal number to the players.

Game Rules: The team sits on the floor in a semicircle, each teammate receives a copy of the list of adjectives, reads it, and says if they didn’t understand something. Each participant, in turn, sits down in front of the semicircle, and each teammate addresses three adjectives from the list to them (for example: ‘Abu, you were active, calm, inventive’). Everyone goes in front of the team and listens to the adjectives addressed by others.

Instructions for the instructor: students need to understand not only what appreciation is (positive encouragement or pressure) and its advantages, but also the disadvantages of depreciation (negative pressure and discouragement).

Negative pressure should not be verbal: a frown or an impatient look is enough to convey the message. A teammate to whom it is conveyed ‘everyone has finished, only you are still delaying us’ will be motivated to finish the job, but will be stressed and if they fail, will feel bad.

Discouragement is an expression that aims to distress someone: ‘Abu, you can’t do anything, we don’t want you on our team anymore!’. However, these words won’t delight Abu, and the speaker won’t feel any better. Discouragement and negative pressure rather harm the team, they don’t help. Each teammate should feel good about their team.

The way we say something (the message’s form) is as important as what we say (the message’s content). Ask students to give examples of encouragement and discouragement. Emphasise that appreciation helps more than depreciation in achieving success.

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16.8. Whisper Sweet Words!

Materials Needed: Two or three knotted ropes (see #18.1).

Game Rules: A group is divided into two equal groups, or if it is very large (over 24-26 people) into four equal groups, with a minimum of 6 players. The activity then proceeds in two groups, each receiving a rope (four groups receive two ropes).

The members of one group form a circle, standing with their arms outstretched, holding onto the rope which forms a circle. The members of the associated group gather behind those in the first group, creating two circles of players. At a signal, each player in the outer circle approaches the ear (from the left, for example) of the person in front of them, and for 15 seconds whispers a few friendly, praising words about the listener’s behaviour in the previous period of the lesson, or from other circumstances. After the 15 seconds are up, the instructor gives a signal, and the outer circle rotates one step to the right, so that the people from outside end up behind the neighbours of the first listeners. Whispering is repeated, after 15 seconds a new signal is given, and the outer circle rotates again to the right by one step, and so on.

This continues until each player in the outer circle has whispered something ‘nice’ to all members of the inner circle, then the two groups swap places and roles. Listeners are not allowed to speak or turn towards the whisperer. Whisperers are not allowed to touch the listeners or say silly things.

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16.9. Goodbye! – A

Materials Needed: Two or three knotted ropes (see #18.1).

Game Rules: A group is divided into two or three groups with unequal numbers of members (at most 8-10 players in one group). The members of each group gather in a circle, standing with their arms outstretched, holding onto a rope to form a circle. The two (or three) circles approach each other until they touch. At the points of tangency (preferably distant), the players interlace (like the teeth of gears). Then, the two (or three) circles begin to rotate slowly, just like the wheels of gears. At each intersection, two players from neighbouring circles meet and kiss each other on the cheek to bid farewell. The rotation continues until each member of one group (circle) has bid farewell to all members of the neighbouring circle.

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16.10. Goodbye! – B

Materials Needed: None.

Game Rules: The players gather in a circle, standing up. The first player (volunteer or appointed by the instructor) bids farewell to their neighbour (player number 2) with an appropriate gesture (hugs them, shakes hands, kisses them, gives them a business card, schedules a future meeting, etc.). After completing the action (gesture), the neighbour (player number 2) turns to the other neighbour (player number 3) and bids farewell with two corresponding gestures: the first one being the one made by the first player and a second one chosen by them. Player number 3 turns to player number 4 and bids farewell with three corresponding gestures: the first two are copied from those made by player number 3, and a third one chosen by them. And so on – each player passes on the task of parting to the next neighbour, performing n+1 gestures, where n is the number of gestures made by the previous neighbour.

If a player forgets or confuses the gestures made by the previous player, their teammates will remind them.

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16.11. Goodbye! – C

Materials Needed: None.

Game Rules: The players gather in a circle, standing shoulder to shoulder. The first player (volunteer or appointed by the instructor) extends their arm towards the centre of the circle, palm facing upwards, then tells their colleagues something they liked and something they didn’t like during the lesson. The neighbour (player number 2) repeats: extends their arm towards the centre of the circle and places their hand on top of the existing one, still palm facing upwards, then tells their colleagues something they liked and something they didn’t like during the lesson. The neighbour (player number 3) repeats: extends their arm towards the centre of the circle and places their hand on top of the existing one, and so on. The activity ends when each member of the group has their hand clasped in the central column of hands, resembling a kebab, and after the last person has shared their two observations (or opinions).

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16.12. Lighting Candles

Materials needed: one whole candle (or at least a piece at least 10 cm long) for each player; a box of matches (or a lighter).

Game rules: Players receive a candle each and line up, then the lights are turned off (or the game is played in the evening). The instructor, also holding a candle, sits at one end of the line and lights their candle. The neighbor asks for permission to light their candle from the flame, and the instructor grants it. And so on, each player asks for help and lights their candle from their neighbor’s.

Variations: Optionally, at the beginning of the game, the instructor can perform a scene with the help of a player to illustrate a “bad” example. The instructor will play a “poor” person asking for light (permission to light their candle), but the partner (the rich one) refuses to give it for free, but agrees to “sell” a piece of flame if they receive money from the “poor” person, or a piece of the candle, etc. The instructor will agree in advance with the collaborator on the scenario, words, gestures, as suggestive as possible, etc.

Instructions for the instructor: In the course of deciphering the experience, the significance of the activity will be deciphered (one of them), namely, that everyone may need and will ask for help from someone else in life, or will be asked to help their neighbor. It will be emphasized that the help given does not diminish one’s “wealth” in any way: the flame is just as strong after lighting the neighbor’s candle. The flame can mean material or spiritual help: information, know-how, etc. Emphasis will also be placed on comparing the two situations: the example of the “bad” rich person in opposition to that of the “good” group.

Attention: At the end of the game, all matches and candles will be extinguished and collected by the instructor in a box!

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16.13. Let’s untie the knots!

Materials needed: a rope (see #18.1).

Game rules: as many simple, successive knots as possible are made on the rope (not too tight!). Then the rope passes to each player in turn, who unties a knot and shares an opinion or what they learned in the respective lesson, then passes the rope to the neighbour. The action repeats until the last knot is untied.

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16.14. Swift Appreciation

Materials needed: none.

Game rules: for appreciating the team’s activity or the conduct of the team-building session, participants gather in a circle, standing or sitting.

The instructor will ask them questions such as:

• How did you feel in this team or in the session you attended?
• How do you assess the collaboration – yours with others; or of others with you, etc.?
• How did you contribute to the team’s action success?
• How do you assess the way decisions were made in the team?

And so on.

The response is expressed in grades: 1 = very poor/bad; 10 = very good/well.

After each question, the participants close their eyes, stretch their arms forward, and raise a number of fingers equal to the grade or evaluation they give as an answer (while keeping the rest of the fingers clenched). After all participants express their answers, the instructor signals to open their eyes, and everyone sees each other’s opinions. Those with significantly different opinions from the average may eventually be invited by the instructor to briefly explain the reasoning behind their answer.

Instructions for the instructor: besides reinforcing mutual trust, the game allows for expressing personal opinion without influences from others.

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