60 Team-Building Activities for Kids & Middle/High School Students

Collaboration and communication are essential skills that students develop throughout their childhood and teenage years. You can help your students learn these skills by introducing team-building activities, which offer opportunities to collaboratively complete tasks, bond over mutual interests, and accomplish goals together. Below you can find 60 team-building activities for kids in elementary school as well as middle school and high school students. These can be great for building a sense of community in classes, as well as in clubs, performance ensembles, and sports teams.

Team Building Activities for Kids

1) Have your students create an age line-up, in which they organize themselves from oldest-to-youngest by walking around the room and sharing their birthdays.

2) Give the same instructions with height, shortest-to-tallest. This can also be done in silence to encourage silent communication.

3) Do a hula hoop pass, in which students join hands in a circle and pass a hula hoop all the way around, stepping through without unclasping their hands.

4) Build food towers in groups, with students competing to build the highest towers with foods such as dried spaghetti, marshmallows on toothpicks, graham crackers, and candy.

5) Put blue, green, and yellow spots on the foreheads of your students, and have them find each other’s “color teams” without speaking. This is a great exercise for nonverbal communication.

6) Have students talk in groups and find a “common thread,” or something they all have in common (from having older siblings to liking ice cream). Afterwards, they can come up with a team name based on this commonality.

7) Have a “show and tell,” in which each student brings in an object or toy that’s important to them.

8) Make a “human alphabet,” in which students work in groups to create each letter of the alphabet with their bodies.

9) Give 20 seemingly unrelated objects to groups of students and have them work together to classify the objects into categories. Once the time is up, have them explain their rationale to the class.

10) Try a game of two-way or four-way tug-of-war, depending on how many students you have.

Team Building Activities for Kids, Middle School, and High School Students (Continued)

11) Play “knot and unknot,” in which students hold hands in a circle and twist and turn under each other until they’re all tangled up, and then they work together to untangle themselves.

12) While you’re at it, play a classic game of Twister, but with the goal of helping the other players keep from falling.

13) Play team tic-tac-toe using 9 hula hoops set up as a tic-tac-toe board. Students can throw different colored bean bags as X’s and O’s.

14) Play “hot and cold” by having a student leave the room while others hide an object. When the student comes back, they look for the object guided by the words “hot” (if they’re near) and “cold” (if they’re far).

15) Create a “floor as lava” obstacle course that students must help their teammates through, or complete as a team relay race.

16) Have students guide each other through a set of obstacles blindfolded in order to teach trust and responsibility.

17) Create a class tradition to begin or end class that involves stretching together, giving each other compliments, or giving high-fives on the way in or out.

18) Work together to decorate a class bulletin board for each season.

19) Do a “mirroring” exercise with a partner, in which one partner moves and the other must be their “mirror,” and then the roles switch. For a more difficult exercise, have them do this while moving across the room (this can also help teach spatial awareness).

20) Do a balloon relay race, in which partners must hold a balloon between their stomachs or backs while racing.

Team Building Activities for Middle School Students

21)Have a compliment circle, in which students sit in a circle for 5 minutes and shout out compliments to others in the circle.

22) Create a scavenger hunt with math or trivia clues that students must complete in small groups.

23) Give a bag with five items to different groups. Then, have the groups work in teams to make and perform skits using the items.

24) Organize a “three-question mingle” session, in which each student writes down three questions on a post-it, and then students pair up and ask each other their questions. After a timer rings, the two students exchange post-its and repeat with different partners.

25) Draw “life maps.” Students draw out maps of their lives as though it were a board game, and then present their maps to small groups.

26) Do a “photograph show and tell,” in which each student brings a photograph that’s important to them and presents it to a small group, as the others ask curious questions about the photograph.

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27) Have a newspaper fashion show, in which students use old newspapers, tape, and other materials to create high-fashion costumes for one person in each group. This activity encourages sustainability and “upcycling,” in addition to collaboration.

28) Do a paper chain race. Each team works with construction paper of a different color to create a paper chain. Whichever team creates the longest chain, after a certain amount of time, wins the race.

29) Play “getting to know you” bingo, in which students must ask each other questions to fill out a bingo sheet with their classmate’s names. The bingo slots can say things such as “has an older sibling” or “plays on a sports team” or “likes spicy food.”

30) Set up a gallery of student projects, and organize a tour so that others from outside the class can come visit the gallery. Your students can work together to organize a tour order, welcome and closing speeches, and a Q&A session.

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31) Play Pictionary: one partner pulls a word, and must convey it to their partner by drawing.

32) Do an egg drop challenge, in which each group must come up with strategies for dropping an egg out the window without it breaking. This could be perfect for a STEM class.

33) Organize a class trash cleanup around the school.

34) Organize a class book swap.

35) Come up with a collective group tradition for beginning or ending class. Maybe this involves doing shout-out compliments, secret handshakes, or stretching together in a circle.

36) Collaboratively create a music playlist with your students that can play during breaks or to begin and end classes.

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37) Create a class play based on a book you’re reading, and ask different students to direct different scenes, design costumes and sets, etc.

38) Have students collaboratively design a restaurant with a theme from the class, including menu items and decorations.

39) Ask a class of 8th graders to work together to design a lesson for a class of 6th graders, or for a local elementary school class. This can help students to bond with each other and other grade levels, while also empowering them to feel mature and ready for high school.

40) Create “strength cards” for each student, which get passed around the classroom. Students write the strengths and other admirable qualities of each student on the card with their name. Each card is returned to the student as a keepsake and a positive reminder.

Team Building Activities for High School Students

41) Ask your students to walk around the room, then choose two others to track (without them knowing). Then, each student moves around, trying to create an equilibrium triangle with the other two they are tracking. The game ends when everyone stops moving in their equilibrium triangles. This is more difficult than it may seem.

42) Replicate an episode of “Shark Tank,” by having groups of students work together to design, present, and sell a product to a group of judges.

43) Play “Two Truths and a Lie” in small groups.

44) Play “partners Two Truths and a Lie,” in which two students get to know each other with icebreaker questions, and then each student creates two truths and a lie about their partner for the group.

45) Have a weekly “lunch and learn,” in which a student or two teach a mini lunchtime class about a skill that has nothing to do with your academic class, such as knitting, cooking, or stand-up comedy.

46) Solve 100-to-500-piece jigsaw puzzles in small groups.

47) Have a “show and tell” with outside hobbies or projects the students are working on, which have nothing to do with the class material.

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48) Organize a “Socratic Seminar.” This discussion format emphasizes careful listening and question-asking over trying to prove a point or win an argument.

49) Make concentric circles, an inner and an outer. Pair the student on the inner with the student closest on the outer, ask a question about course material, and have them discuss. When the time is up, the circle rotates and another question is posed.

50) Do the same concentric circles, but with outlandish or fictitious prompts that the students need to create answers for (for example, “What if gravity didn’t exist?” or “What if the historical event __________ never happened?”)

51) Play “this or that,” in which students can agree, disagree, or remain neutral on a variety of political statements or issues. Then students can discuss the issues in small groups in a manner that encourages questioning and listening, rather than proving the other wrong.

52) Allow the class discussion to become personal by dividing students into groups to talk about how a lesson affects their lives. This is a great way to process information and bond while they’re at it. Some question examples could be: Which character in the book do you relate to? How does climate change affect your everyday life? What is the personal impact of [name historical event]?

53) Have your class or student group organize an event together, such as a performance, gallery opening, presentation series, or charity event. They can take on roles for organizing (social media, communications, setup/breakdown, tech needs, introduction, food/drinks, etc.)

Team Building Activities for Kids, Middle School, and High School Students (Continued)

54) Play a version of Pictionary but with course material. One partner pulls a word or concept and must convey it to their partner by drawing it or explaining it without using the word itself.

55) Do a service-learning project together, such as picking up trash in a park or spending a day doing art with elders at a retirement home,

56) Organize a class party for a holiday. Have students contribute different food items and plan activities.

57) Have your students come up with a group ritual for ending classes or club meetings, such as giving high fives, doing shout-out compliments, or reciting a goofy song or chant.

58) Have a trivia day based on lesson material, in which students must come up with answers as groups to win points.

59) Have a book club for outside reading, in which students decide with their groups on the books. They meet weekly to discuss a few chapters at a time, and they give a presentation to the class after the book is complete.

60) Ask students to collaboratively imagine and design theme parks based on course material. Each group presents to the class at the end.

Additional Resources

As you can see, there are seemingly endless possibilities for introducing team-building activities to your students, whether you teach kindergarten class or high school history, or whether you direct school theater rehearsals or coach basketball practice. Remember that you can adapt any of these activities for the grade-level you’re working with. For more inspiration related to classroom activities, check out the following articles on icebreaker questions for students, weird facts to share, 150 Journal Prompts for Students, and last day of school activities