Home >> Games & Cards >> Kids Games

Games to Teach Teamwork

Teamwork is an important concept for children to learn. In fact, the younger they learn this quality the better. There are times when working on your own is fine, but throughout the course of life, people often need to work as a team. Using games is an excellent way to teach kids to use teamwork. The game setting makes it interesting, but the educational value is the same.

Paddling
- Teaching kids how to paddle a boat definitely uses teamwork. If only one person paddles, the boat goes in circles. The kids in the boat must work together at an even pace to get the boat to go in the direction they desire. This is a good activity for summer or scout camps as long as there is access to a lake and boats with oars or paddles. You can use the paddle boats, where kids have to use their feet, for the younger children and row boats for the older ones. You may want to pair up the kids so they are not necessarily with their best friends. To make it a true lesson in teamwork, pair up a stronger child with a weaker one.
Blind Communications
- To prepare your kids for this game, set up an obstacle course of sorts. You can use whatever objects you have lying around, such as chairs or tires. To make it a little more exciting for the kids, add a wading pool filled with water. Split the groups into pairs. The object of this game is for one half of the pair to guide his partner around the obstacle course. The one on the course is blindfolded and must completely rely on his partner for information and direction. The two cannot complete the course without teamwork. Sometimes the rest of the group watching the game will get a little loud. It is not necessary to make sure they keep quiet. In fact, this makes the teamwork even more necessary since the guide needs to communicate louder and the course walker must tune out the noise around him.
Flipping the Tarp
- This is a good game to encourage teamwork as a whole group and not just two or three people. You will want to prepare this ahead of time even though there is very little prep work. Simply lay a tarp on the floor of a gym or outside, depending on where you have your group of kids get together. Have all of the kids stand on the tarp. The purpose of this game is to turn the tarp over completely without stepping on the floor or the ground. This game requires a lot of group teamwork as the tarp gets smaller. The group will have to figure out how to get one person at a time onto the back side of the tarp. If you want to make this fairly difficult, use a relatively small tarp. The smaller the tarp, the more teamwork required.

Kids Games