Terrific Team Building Ideas for Kids' Groups

Together Everyone Achieves More – set up your kids' group for success with fun team building activities that help establish trust among teammates and hone key life skills such as listening, cooperation, collaboration, and strategizing as a group. Check out the best team building ideas for kids below!

Team Building Ideas

Supporting each other to complete a task strengthens the team bond that is needed to win games, make it through wilderness survival weekend, or whatever the group’s goal is. Here are some favorite team building games and activities to get the team chemistry flowing.

Community Giveback

Task the team with coming up with ideas as a group for giving back to the community, then have them vote on their favorite activity and do it! Is there a community garden the team can volunteer at one morning? Is there a local shelter or church that would benefit from the team making blessing bags to help those in need in the community?

Escape the (Insert Room)

This could take place at an official escape room location, in a community center rec room, a gym, a classroom, or any other room (with a locked door) that is big enough to accommodate the entire group and allows for them to move around freely. The group must work together to solve clues and puzzles strategically-placed throughout the room in order to “escape” (be let out of the room). Pro Tip: Let the pros do all the heavy lifting of planning this activity for you – many escape rooms, like The Great Escape Room, feature various room themes and even offer to bring the fun to you with a portable escape experience option!

Hula Hoop Pass

Ask your kids’ group to stand in a big circle or a long line, hang a hula hoop on someone’s arm, and then have everyone join hands. The goal of this activity is to pass the hula hoop around the entire circle or down the line without anyone unclasping their hands. Have fun watching them try to figure out how to move their bodies in unison to pass the hoop to the next person! See how it’s done here.

Mystery Solvers (aka Clue)

This could be solving the mystery of a murder, a bank robbery, or something else. Each teammate gets a clue or two, then they must read their clues to each other out loud. The group must discuss everything they’ve learned with the clues in order to piece together what happened and who committed the crime.

Silent Birthday Line Up

Kick off this activity by telling the team that no talking is allowed whatsoever, and no one is allowed to write anything down. The goal is to have the entire group line up in order of their birthdays, from January 1 to December 31, without ever saying a word. The group must use non-verbal communication to complete the task.

Treasure Hunt or Scavenger Hunt

Keep it simple… or go all out! Either way, hosting a treasure or scavenger hunt is a sure way to hone key skills that help make a successful team – like listening, cooperation, and communication skills. Base the clues’ difficulty level on the age group of the team – think picture clues and simple finds for younger ages, and fill-in-the-blank, word search, or math brain game clues for older kids.

Trust Walk

Set up an obstacle course and blindfold one of the group’s members. All other members of the team must guide their friend through the course using verbal instructions only. Do at least a few rounds of this exercise with different teammates being blindfolded.

Team Building Tips

No matter what team building activities and games you choose for your kids’ group, keep these useful tips in mind.

• At the end of any team building activity, discuss the challenge and the results so the kids can reflect on the experience and how it strengthened their bond as a group. Come ready with questions to engage them, such as:

  • Did your team work well together and how?

  • What skills did you need to use to accomplish this activity? (clear communication, cooperation, strategizing as a team, etc.)

  • Why is it important to pay attention to non-verbal communication when working with others?

  • What would you do differently next time?

• Up the difficulty level of any activity by adding communication restraints, such as a blindfold or a no talking rule.

• For the sake of bonding the entire team, stick with activities that allow everyone to participate at the same time, rather than breaking the group into smaller teams to complete a task.

• Have fun!

Being a good teammate is key to being successful in many arenas – school, work, and even in one’s personal life. With team building activities, you can help your kids’ group develop those skills while setting themselves up for a successful event, season, semester, or year!

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