Leadership Games for Middle School

Human Overhand Activity

• The human overhand activity will test the patience, leadership and cooperation of a group. This can be a bit challenging for middle school students, but it is not impossible to do. Divide the class into groups of four or six. Give each group a rope that is 18 inches long. Ask the group members to hold on to the rope.

  The aim of the game is for each group to tie a knot at the middle of the rope. During the process, the members must have their hands on the rope at all times. The activity can be frustrating and will take a lot of time. The teams will have to cooperate with each other or designate a leader in order to complete the task.

Engineering Structure

• The goal of this game is to build an engineering structure using limited resources around the classroom. Divide the class into groups of five or six. Give specifications on the engineering structure that they have to build. Some specifications can be the height of the structure, the materials that they can use and the time limit for building the structure.

  This will test the teamwork of the students. Apart from this, they will know the importance of having a leader in the group rather than having everyone doing something different. It will make it easier to work on the structure.

Hoop It Up

• This leadership activity will enable middle school students to think as a group instead of thinking for themselves. Put a hula-hoop at each of the four corners of the room and at the center.

  Divide the students into four groups, and designate a hula-hoop for each group. The center hula-hoop will have around 20 balls. The aim of each group is to gather all the balls and place them inside their hula-hoop. That is the only rule for the game.

  Give the teams a few minutes to plan their strategies. The only time they can win is if they work together as a single team, place all their hula-hoops on top of each other and place the balls inside.