Customer Reviews

Team Challenges: 170+ Group Activities to Build Cooperation, Communication, and Creativity

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wow. Kris Bordessa has all the bases covered here. I've had this book for a couple years now, and I've used some of the activities from time to time. Last week I held an "indoor beach day" for my students and used the physical activities from the book--we all had so much fun! The students, all high school juniors, explored these challenges and honed their communication and collaboration skills at the same time.

Bordessa divides the tasks up to make it easy to find something appropriate for the situation. Small ice-breaker activities, building competitions, and more offer a wide range of possibilities so that students never have to face the same challenge twice.

The only request I would make would be for a sequel!

I'm a school librarian, and I lent a copy of this book to a couple of teachers at the school, and they are both going nuts for it. The book has a wide variety of activities - some are "thinking" activities like word games, and one teacher is planning to use them when she needs to keep her students occupied for a few minutes. She is so excited to have a bunch of resources other than Mad-Libs! Then there are team challenges that involve solving some sort of problem together using materials. And also there are challenges that are perfect large-motor-skills activities for when kids need to burn off some energy.

The activities can be used (or modified) for a wide range of ages. I can see this book becoming a favorite resource for teachers, scout leaders, homeschooling parents, pretty much anyone who works with kids. Some of the activities would even be perfect for birthday parties.

The author has worked with kids for years and it really shows. This is a perfect gift for a teacher.

Planning church youth group activities can be a real challenge. Especially if you want to keep games fun and fresh week after week.

There are a lot of helpful gaming books on the market and even some good websites, but I've been frustrated by weaknesses many of these resources seem to share: many activities do not work well for small groups; many games involve embarrassing or inappropriate physical contact between genders; many games lack creativity and seem to just repackage the same concept into a thousand different variations; and some games breed an overly-competitive spirit which stifles godly, edifying relationships.

In Team Challenges, the author pools her years of experience in 4-H and other youth programs into a helpful book of "easy-to-implement activities that will keep kids laughing, having fun, and learning the benefits of teamwork, all at the same time."

Could you create a bridge that spans 18 inches using only 3 sticky notes and 10 cotton balls? Could you think of 20 things that come in pairs? Could you suspend a beach ball at least 3 feet high in less than five minutes using only a sheet of mailing labels and 25 sheets of newspaper? Could you and your friends completely flip a table cloth using only your feet? Could you plan a skit in only one minute about a loud guest visiting a library? These are only a sampling of great ideas in the book.

Team Challenges fills an important gap in game-planning that many other books miss. It emphasizes cooperation rather than competition. It focuses on problem-solving rather than sheer physical prowess. It fosters creativity rather than repackaging the same old relay races. And I believe it would be a great addition for any teacher, youth pastor, game leader, or children's resource room.

This book is full of fun stuff for kids of all ages. The building and role playing activities work wonderfully as birthday party games and the verbal challenges are excellent diversions on long car trips. It's a very hands-on, exciting book to read--guaranteed to give you lots of good ideas. I have three children and recommend this book for anyone who has a big family.

--Jennifer Margulis, author of "Why Babies Do That: Baffling Baby Behavior Explained"

I am a therapist at a child and adolescent day treatment for kids with emotional and behavioral issues. It can be difficult to find activities that seem to motivate and energize the kids. They enjoyed many of the activities in this book. The activities are very hands-on and involve a lot of working together to build things out of all kinds of everyday materials. I highly recommend this book.

We're a homeschooling family, and have started using this book in our co-op. It's so amazing to watch the idea of "team" unfold as we go along. This book is fantastic, so well organized and well written, and full of so many different ideas, you're bound to find something unique that works for every personality. We've participated in Oddessey of the Mind in the past, and I think this book should be on every group leader's book shelf. If you like helping kids and adults learn to work together, this book will take you to new levels of cooperation, and will likely teach you more about yourself than you ever thought possible.

Team Challenges is a resource book packed with ideas and activities for encouraging and developing children?s creativity, lateral thinking, and communication skills.

It's easy to see how these challenges could help to develop a child's confidence as well as exposing children to career and skill development options. Solutions are not necessarily guaranteed and children can be encouraged to continue thinking a problem through when the time is up and to present further ideas later, or even try the task again.

The challenges in this book emphasise creative and imaginative thinking and I'm very impressed with the author's ideas.

Essentially, this is a book for people with little-to-no experience with group games or team building. All of the activities listed were ones I already knew, and the large number in the title comes from the number of variations for each of 3 activities: building things out of everyday items (see how high you can build a tower with the given items), common physical challenges (get the group from one side of the room to another using various props), and improv/word games. If you have a small imagination and very limited knowlegde of common team building activities, you might like this book, but if you're already in the field and looking for a book of new ideas, keep on looking. This isn't it.

I love this book. I have used it for family reunion activities, children's birthday parties, and homeschool ice-breakers. The author spells it all out in steps, even to the point of telling you what to read to participants in the way of instructions.
The materials needed are mostly stuff you have around the house.
It's my go-to book when I need to plan activities.

I found this book easy to use for my high school/middle school student groups. I was able to flip through all the activities and find some that suited our needs perfectly. I didn't need anywhere near all the ideas included - just picked our favorites, and they were all big hits with the students. Now I've signed on to the fanpage on Facebook and get even more quick, fun challenges.