As I come across more team building activities for teens, I will add and update this post so that you get the best ideas for your team building exercises.
You will find out:

1. The best approach for delivering team building activities for teens
2. How to keep teens engaged during team building activities
3. Safety Considerations
4. Types of Team Building Activities
5. 53 team building activities for teens

This step by step guide on how to run more than 50 fun team building activities for teens makes your job easy. The free printable worksheets show how to avoid disasters and keep things on track, with instructions, rules, equipment, aims and outcomes. The team building exercises go way beyond just the usual obstacle course ideas, swamp crossing, water bucket and rope pulley swap, and the favourite toxic waste canister.

Types of Team Building Activities

There are a few different types of team building activities that you can use to develop teamwork for teenagers.

• Problem solving,
• physical challenges,
• Team Bonding Activities,
• Military team building activities

There are also the good old team building games that everyone loves to do time and time again.
There are plenty of more specific team building activities guides for teens including the popular team building activities for teenage athletes.

If you are planning your team building activities for outdoors or summer camps, I’ve compiled 40 of my best outdoor team building activities in one post for you.

The real benefit of teen team building activities is providing youth with those essential life skills of problem solving, working as a team, understanding others, and youth leadership. These character building activities need to be run in just the right way to elicit the very best from each teenager.

The Best Approach for Team Building Activities for Teens

If anyone tells a teenager to go and do some task, often the response is “No” or “Why?” However, if you present the task as a challenge you are pretty much guaranteed a positive response.

The second key factor is to ensure that every teenager can clearly see what they will get out of the team building activities. If you sell it purely on improving their teamwork or youth leadership skills, then you aren’t going to win their attention. Present it as fun, provide some reward for succeeding, or even give them the opportunity to feel that they have achieved something.

The aim of a team building activity is that there is some goal that is worth the effort to attain, but it should be achievable. If your group of teenagers perceive the team building activities to be impossible, they won’t even bother and will be completely demoralised.

You have to make the challenge attractive. Rather than ask if they can get a bucket of water from one end of a field to the other, ask if they can do it faster than another team whilst negotiating an obstacle course. Teenagers will definitely be up for that.

Teenagers are at a stage in their lives when they are trying to work out who they are and where they fit into society. The effectiveness of outdoor team building activities for difficult youth is proven, as long as those organising it are encouraging and supportive. Help them to rise to the challenge, giving them support and encouragement to develop as they discover their true potential.

Safety

As with any team building activities, make sure that you take care that all of the teenagers are safe during the challenges you set. The spirit of competitiveness may cause some teens to over stretch themselves and do something too adventurous just to win. Clearly state to the youth group what the rules are and make sure that they stick to them. You will always get those who innovate, cheat or break the rules just to beat the opposition.

The List of Team Building Activities

This list is not the usual boring team building games for teens that you will find all over the internet. You won’t find “lining up in birthday order” here!

Whether you want It’s a Knockout type games or Crystal Maze activities, these outdoor physical team building activities are for teens to really get to develop what they’re made of.

1. 1. Human pyramids

      Teenagers seem to love the physical element of this is they are good friends. How high can you build a human pyramid or tower?

   2. Run Mats

      

      Run mats makes a great team building activity. The team stand inside the fabric loop and have to move forward together as a team. The sturdy material works well inside or outdoors. This has been field tested by over 500 students in a single day without any snagging, tearing, or complications. You will probably want to buy three run mats to race teams in relays. An absolute hit with teachers and students!

   3. Obstacle courses

      Create an assault course or obstacle course and get the teams to race over it.

   4. Bucket Swimming relay

      Get the team to do a swimming relay collecting things from the other end of the pool. Include a bucket, which is actually a real challenge to swim with as it fills up and slows you down.

   5. Blanket Volleyball

      Basically, you set up a volleyball court using blankets or large tarps for the net. The teams on either side cannot tell where the ball is coming from, so have to work together to win.

      You can play this team building game standing up or sitting down on the floor, depending on how high you can make the net.

   6. Crate Stacking

      You need proper climbing gear for crate stacking. Rig a safety line and pulley high above the place where you will be stacking your crates. The stacker has to stack the crates into a tower as tall as they can, whilst balancing on the top. They need to wear a climbing harness, and helmet, with someone belaying them from the ground.

      The team have to pass the crates up to the stacker. Takes guts and teamwork.

   7. Bucket on a rope water obstacle course

      Another teen favourite. Get a very long piece of rope or string and weave it across a series of obstacles. Up trees, through bushes, across mud, over walls. Then, feed one end of the string through the handle of a bucket that is full of water. The team then has to get the bucket of water to the other end of the piece of string without spilling any water. Good teamwork is needed to pass the bucket up and over high obstacles.

   8. Capture the Flag

      
      
      
      Capture the Flag as a team building game for teens is one of the easiest to run. Plus it will wear out the energetic ones whilst those who don’t feel up to running around can adopt different roles within the game.
      Capture the flag involves placing two flags at a distance from each other within a defined play area. Each team starts from their game base where their flag is and try to capture the flag from their opponents and return it to their base. The first team to get the enemy flag to their base wins, regardless of whether they still have their own flag. Very quick and easy to setup. Even more fun at night.

   9. Firemans relays

      Each team has to form a relay chain to get all of the water from one big barrel across an obstacle course and into another barrel at the other end. The race is timed of course.

   10. Chariot racing

       The team builds a chariot and then races across a course. The course can be as long as you like. I have raced cross country over several miles before.

       The chariot can have wheels, or be dragged like a wooden frame.

       

   11. Sedan Chair Racing

       Sedan chair racing is the same principle as the chariot race, but the team have to carry the sedan chair off the ground with their rider sitting on it. A lot more tiring.

   12. Orienteering

       The team has to work together to navigate a course finding markers along the way. They have to keep together. The fastest team wins.

   13. Go Karting

       The team can make go karts, or just go somewhere and race proper go karts. They work as a team to see who is fastest.

   14. Geocaching

       Using a GPS, you can find hidden caches all over the world using the geocaching.com website. A hitech treasure hunt.

   15. Sailing

       One way to get the team to work together is to send them on a sailing day. The skipper will teach them how to work as a crew, and they will not only learn how to work together, but also learn a new skill.

   16. Drops

       Drops are where you drop off the team of teenagers somewhere. They then have to work out how to get to a given location in a time limit.

       You can make it easier by getting them to travel to a tall building that they can see from the start point. Or you could make it harder by blindfolding them when taking them to the start, so that they don’t know where they are.

   17. Soap Box Cart Gravity Racing

       A soap box cart originates from the good old days when kids used to get a wooden soap box crate, stick some pram wheels on and race them down hills. Get you teams to design and build their soap box carts and race them down a hill.

   18. Get the Canister from Toxic Area

       This is a popular team building challenge. Set up a can inside a taped off area. Give the team some equipment to retrieve the can without touching the ground inside the area. One variation I have done is to attach an ammo box up a tall tree containing supper for the team. They have to use climbing gear to climb up the tree, retrieve the box and return without dropping it inside the area. Inside the box can be anything you want that they can cook over an open fire. We had two chickens in ours. We plucked and prepared them while others in the team made the fire. Lovely.

       If you aren’t that adventurous, you can just put sweets in the can.

   19. Now Get Out Of That Challenges

       Now Get Out of That was a UK TV programme where teams had to navigate to a given location. There they would be given a puzzle or challenge to solve. Successful completion would give the teams the clue to the next location.

       The team challenges included river crossings and getting a cassette recorder to work when the power wires were too short (use the earth lead to extend the others). The sort of tasks teens will love are things like working out how to boil some water using only a sheet of paper and a candle. They have to fold up the paper to make a container. The water soaks into the paper a bit, but this is countered by the flame. It doesn’t burn the paper if they are careful.

   20. The Great Egg Race – Invention to solve a problem

       Give the teams a problem where they have to build something to solve it. It could be a device to carry an egg the furthest over a course, or a rocket/parachute that can bring an egg back safely to earth.

   21. Scavenger Hunts and Treasure Hunts

       Give your teams a list of items or tasks they have to complete in the time given. To make your teens think, make the description of the items cryptic. A picture of Thomas Jefferson ($5 bill), or a portrait of the Queen (a stamp or money).

       If completing tasks such as visiting places, they can take a picture to prove they were there.

   22. Monopoly Runs

       Monopoly Runs are a race around a virtual Monopoly board. This is easy if you are in London. The team has to visit all of the places named on the Monopoly board as quickly as possible.

       If you aren’t in London, you can create your own board with place names of where you are.

   23. Balance on a brick

       How many people can balance on a brick at once? You can use any surface to hand, such as a milk crate. Or how many teens can you get in a phone box or in a car.

   24. Blindfold tent pitching

       This is straightforward, but is prone to lots of cheating and peeking.

   25. Blindfold instructions

       This trust building game involves a member of the team being blindfolded and guided by voice around an obstacle course. If more than one team goes at once, this adds lots of confusion as the people who are blindfolded are not sure if the instructions are for them or not.

   26. Construction

       Get the team to build something. Anything. Just the act of cooperative work improves their team work. This is a great way to support troubled teens, as they will often work well when given physical tasks where they can see the results of their labour. Community projects may be ideal.

   27. Lego structure copy

       Make a Lego structure out of different coloured bricks and place it in the next room. Each team is given a set of bricks to build an exact copy of the Lego structure. The rules are that only one person from each team is allowed to go and have a look at the structure. When they come back to their team, they cannot touch the bricks, but they can tell the others how to build their copy. Anybody from the team can go and have a look, but only one at a time. Once another person comes back from having a look, the previous person can then touch their bricks to help build.

       What you don’t tell the teams is that you have swapped one brick from each of their supplies with another team. This means that they cannot complete their copy unless they get the correct brick from another team. Of course, the other teams will not be willing to give away their bricks until they know which ones they have spare. Negotiation comes into play.

       One amazing thing I once saw was when I did this team building activity with ten teams. Some of the teams grouped together and all worked on completing one model. They could then copy the model within the room as they had a copy in front of them. All I had said is that there was a prize for every team that completes their copy of the model. It is not a race, but most teams usually want to be first and don’t help the greater group.

   28. Swamp Crossing

       Create a swamp, and then the teams have to cross it without going in it. They can be provided with a variety of useful and unhelpful equipment. Planks and bricks are commonly used. You can also get the teams to make a bridge.

   29. Follow the plans

       Give each team a set of plans that tell them how to do or build something. A prize is given for every team that completes the task in the time limit.

       What you don’t tell them is that you have not given them a full set of instructions. Take one page from each set of instructions and put it into the instruction for another team. So team A may have pages 1, 2, 4 and 5; Team B may have pages 1, 2, 3 and 5. The teams will need to work this out to finish the task. Sometimes they will improvise and work out what the missing instructions might be.

   30. Be dramatic

       If you live in NYC or San Francisco, there are some great theatre improvisation sessions that you can go to. The team building sessions get everyone working together, having fun, and even performing some comedy. A great laugh.

       If you are not so fortunate, give the teams a silly phrase on a piece of paper. The teams then have to create a short play that includes that sentence. The other teams in the audience have to guess what the sentence was.

   31. Human Marble Run

       Give each teenager in the team a length of gutter or drainpipe. The team has to convey a tennis ball or golf ball from one place to another by rolling the ball from one piece of gutter to the next. Make it interesting by making the team get the ball to traverse an obstacle course or to go up and down stairs. Not as easy as it sounds.

1. Learn a new sport

   Just have a look at the full outdoor activities list to discover a new sport they all might like to try. Sharing the learning experience is a great way to get teens to bond.

2. Chocolate making

   Make a giant bar of chocolate

3. The Search Party

   This team building activity is a great way for teens to learn and understand what is involved with organising a search party. You could even get the real emergency services involved for the practice and education.

   Two people are to act as the missing persons and wait at a known location in the woods. Everyone else is given a rough location of where they might be and they then have to form a search party to find them. To make it harder, you can have the rule that the missing people do not answer to any rescuers’ calls. Or do it at night. You will need to have a clear signal that the missing people must respond to in case the rescuers cannot find them.

4. Raft Building

    

   

   A favourite amongst teens for team building. Give them lots of poles, ropes and large barrels to lash together to form a raft. Then have a race or get them to cross a river.

5. Egg Tower Construction

   Yes it’s the “build a tower using drinking straws and tape to support an egg.” No need to say any more.

6. Target Practice

   Use any projectile to hit a target. Water, paint or flour bombs are the best. The team has to build their contraption for launching their ammo. See which team can fire it the furthest, or get closest to a target. You can also have a battle firing at each other. Eye protection is advised. Get building those trebuchets, catapults, water bombs slings and ballistas.

7. The levitating Stick

   This team building activity involves the team getting into two rows facing each other. Everyone holds out their index finger and you place a lightweight cane or stick so that it rests on everyone’s fingers. The team then have to lower the stick to the ground whilst keeping their fingers in contact with the stick.

   What happens is that someone will usually apply more pressure on the stick and it will go up a bit. Someone else realises that their finger is not longer touching the stick so they raise their finger. The stick then ends up magically levitating up into the air as everyone lifts their fingers.

   It takes coordination to get the stick to the ground.

8. Bridge Building and other river crossings

   Create a virtual river using two long pieces of rope. Give the teams equipment to make a bridge. If you are feeling adventurous, do it over a real stream or river.

9. The Wall

   Find an assault course that has a ten foot wall in it. The team has to get everyone over the wall. It takes planning, as the strongest person who can lift the other up onto the wall may not be the best person that everyone else has to then pull up the wall.

10. Electric Fence

    This is one of the most popular trust building activities for youth groups. Set up a fence made of rope with large squares. This can either be ready made or you can use several pieces of rope to make a spider’s web sort of arrangement. The team then have to get every teen through the electric fence without touching the ropes. Lots of trust required.

    

11. Water Barrel Swap

    Tie a pulley to a tree branch and pass a rope through it. Tie a barrel to each end of the rope. Fill one barrel with water. Then fence off an area around the barrels. The challenge is to swap positions of the barrels without anyone touching the floor inside the fenced off area, or touch the barrels.

12. Human Knot

    Everyone crowds together and randomly holds someone else’s hands. They then have to unravel themselves without letting go.

13. Circle Lap Sit

    Get everyone into a circle. Everyone then turns to face the person to their left. They all then sit on the lap of the person behind. If done at the same time, everyone ends up sitting on a lap self supporting. If not, people fall on the floor.

14. Parachute Games

    Take one large parachute and play team building games with it. There are some great parachute games books on Amazon.

15. Location Hunt from Photo

    Give the teams a set of photos of places in the area. They then have to go to those places and prove they were there. The photos can be obvious or obscure, depending on the skills of your teens.

16. Dragon Boat Racing

    Get the team working together to paddle a dragon boat in a race. Rowing is another idea.

17. Canoe catamaran trust

    Using two canoes, balance beams between them and the team leader sits on the beam. Teams then canoe a course around the lake

18. Canal Lock Navigation

    Guide a canal boat through a lock

19. Technology Transmissions

    Get the teams to use technology to solve a puzzle or challenge.

20. Group plank skiing

    You need two planks with loops of rope attached to them. The team stands with a foot on each plank holding the rope. They then have to walk the plank skis to the end of the room or field. This requires coordination and teamwork to lift the plank.

21. White water Rafting

    Send your teens white water rafting. They need to listen to the instructor and work together to paddle in the right direction.

22. Paintball

    Paintball can be a great way to get teams to work together. They will need to formulate plans, adapt them during the game, and work together to win. If you don’t give any guidance, it will often end up as a general free for all.

23. Water Fights

    Using water fights as a team building activity for teens gives you plenty of scope to adapt to your environment. You can use rivers, lakes, boats, or just two large barrels of water at each end of a field for them to refill from. Allow a free for all, or work out a points system for achieving some goal such as capturing a flag.

24. Wide Games

    
    Capture the Flag on Amazon

    Wide games are team games played over a large area, usually at night. The most common wide game is Capture the Flag. One team of teens defends a base, whilst the other has to enter and retrieve an object such as a flag and return it to their base. I have a powerful rotating beacon connected to a car battery and fire alarm switch. The switch is held open by a block of wood. The players have to get into the camp and remove the block of wood which turns on the beacon. That way it is obvious when the game is over.

Need More Team Building Activities?

If these team building activities don’t meet your needs, you can find many more ideas in the full team building activities list containing worksheets for all of the team building activities to make it easy for you.
If you want to help teenagers to get to know each other better, try these team bonding activities.

The post Team Building Activities for Teens appeared first on Active Outdoors.

It is good to see that playground equipment that is designed for adults is appearing more and more in parks and outdoor play areas.  These awesome bits of kit at long last make up some decent adventure playgrounds and teen shelters that provide teens with somewhere to go outdoors for free. It is essential to be able to spend time outdoors socially with friends, show off and use up some of that pent up energy from the day. Teen playgrounds are great, but if you can have a multi use games area or MUGA that’s even better.  However it has taken a long time for teen playgrounds to be considered rather than just playground equipment for young children.

Playgrounds are only for kids

Local parks often only have a kids playground. When teenagers go on the swings, parents of the kids complain.  Teenagers get bad press for hanging around outside on street corners and other public places.  I must admit that some teens don’t do anyone any favours by the use of bad language, unruly behaviour and vandalism.  So what should be the way forward?

What teens are seeking is a place in their neighbourhood where they can meet up with others and do something together. If the council were to provide decent free open access places for teenagers to socialise, then the opinion of teenagers would improve.

Teens need to burn off their energy in a constructive way.  They rise to personal challenges, and boys in particular like to compete physically.  You might think that some form of fitness equipment or outdoor adventure playground would be good. The thing about outdoor adventure playground equipment is that it often gets damaged and then the whole playground gets condemned for months and eventually just gets removed leaving an empty space!

The design and engineering of playground equipment has led to more robust and sturdy play areas that require less maintenance and last substantially longer.  No more wooden structures that rot and collapse.

Types of Playground Equipment

There are five main types of playground equipment for teens:

1. Playground equipment to test physical ability such as climbing frames and obstacle courses
2. Fun playground equipment such as big swings and roundabouts
3. Trim Trails
4. Outdoor gyms
5. Multi-Use Games Areas

Play Equipment for Teens and Adults Physical Ability

Some playground equipment manufacturers can provide a Ninja Warrior type curved wall for finishing, where you have to run up the curved surface and climb to the top.

Obstacle course playground equipment for teens comes as set designs, or can be designed suit the needs of the specific play area.  The play surface underneath the play equipment is more often composed of a rubber compound.  Bark chippings are becoming a thing of the past.

Combine one of these climbing frames with a teen shelter and you have a good playground layout that will satisfy most teens and give them a constructive way to spend their leisure time outdoors.

Fun Playground Equipment for Teens

One of the attractions of meeting up with friends is to have some fun together.  Big swings like the snake swing in the photo above are easy to install and will get used in a variety of ways by teens.  Just sitting and chatting, gently swinging, or the extreme how high can you go swing.

An example of the best in breed playground equipment for pure fun is manufactured by Wicksteed Leisure Ltd in the UK.

Trim Trails

Trim trails are usually made of sustainable wood to make balance beams and obstacles that can be used for exercise.  These differ from the obstacle courses in that their purpose is to provide activity stations for fitness and exercise.  Trim trails are modular and easy to install but do require maintenance to ensure that the wood is in good condition.

Outdoor Gyms

Outdoor gyms appeared around 2010.  The Outdoor Gym Company in the UK provides these in playgrounds around the country.  The playground equipment is made from metal and uses a persons own body weight to act as the challenge for strength.  The image above shows a leg extension station.  You sit on the seat with your feet on the footplates.  By extending you legs you push the seat back and upwards.

Multi Use Games Areas

The best solution seems to be to make an outdoor play area for teenagers by building a multi use games area (MUGA). The best location for outdoor playground equipment for teens is on the opposite side of the playing field from the kids playground so that teenagers are less likely to play near young children and less likely to get moaned at.

Playground equipment for teens still seems to take second place over outdoor play areas for young children. Local councils should start building more outdoor play equipment for teenagers.  This will give young people something constructive to do instead of just wandering the streets aimlessly. In return, teenagers need to respect the money invested in them by the provision of outdoor play areas for youth. Vandalism is a huge waste of money which is paid for by all of the adults who pay council tax. By causing vandalism and graffiti, teenagers waste the very money that could be spent on providing playground equipment for them. At some point, hopefully teenagers will work this out and look after their own communities.

Others forms of outdoor play areas for teens and adults include Outdoor Basketball Courts.

If you have the skills, perhaps you could Make your own backyard playground.

The post Playground Equipment for Teens appeared first on Active Outdoors.

1. communication,
2. leadership,
3. understanding and respecting individual’s roles,
4. knowing each other’s abilities to predict positions and play,
5. trusting and depending on each other
6. morale and motivation.

I have chosen team building activities for teenage athletes that are not just about playing games, but specifically improve key teamwork skills that boost overall team performance as well as individual skill. as part of an outstanding team.

Team Cooperation

One of the key challenges that coaches face in training teenage athletes for teams is to get the players to work together. In young children, you will always see every child following the ball around a sports pitch all trying to get it themselves. By the time they are teens, they are beginning to learn that by spreading out and passing the ball around they have a better chance of winning.Understanding and sticking to a particular role on the athletics team will also help teens to be better at working together as a team.

Sports Team building games that develop cooperation

Human pyramids

Teenagers seem to love the physical element of this is they are good friends. How high can you build a human pyramid or tower?

Egg Toss

How far can you throw a raw egg to your fellow teen so that they can successfully catch it?

The levitating Stick

This team building activity involves the team getting into two rows facing each other. Everyone holds out their index finger and you place a lightweight cane or stick so that it rests on everyone’s fingers. The team then have to lower the stick to the ground whilst keeping their fingers in contact with the stick.

What happens is that someone will usually apply more pressure on the stick and it will go up a bit. Someone else realises that their finger is not longer touching the stick so they raise their finger. The stick then ends up magically levitating up into the air as everyone lifts their fingers.

It takes coordination to get the stick to the ground.

Trust and Prediction

Getting to know what your team mates will do in a situation is vital to winning and outperforming your opposition. Teen athletes have to be given some special team exercises that encourage them to learn each others strengths, abilities and behaviours. By doing so, teens can then begin to trust one another, and know how thir team mates will respond to situations.

Knowing how other teen athletes perform on the team enables players to pass the ball into space knowing that their team mate can run fast enough to get there and know that they will be expected to find that space.

Teen athlete team building trust exercises

The Wall

Find an assault course that has a ten foot wall in it. The team has to get everyone over the wall. It takes planning, as the strongest person who can lift the other up onto the wall may not be the best person that everyone else has to then pull up the wall.

Electric Fence

This is one of the most popular trust building activities for youth groups. Set up a fence made of rope with large squares. This can either be ready made or you can use several pieces of rope to make a spider’s web sort of arrangement. The team then have to get every teen through the electric fence without touching the ropes. Lots of trust required.

Canoe catamaran trust

Using two canoes, balance beams between them and the team leader sits on the beam. Teams then canoe a course around the lake.

Getting teen athletes to communicate with their team

Teens are very good at keeping their intentions to themselves. Oh yes they post everything on social media, but when it comes to being on the playing field, teachers have to really encourage them to tell each other how to work together during a game or competition.

Shouting out and calling for a ball, or giving directions will help teens to improve. These team building activities give teen athletes the opportunity to try out new skills by improving their communication techniques and understanding just how important to success communication is.

Communication team building activities for teen athletes

Crate Stacking

You need proper climbing gear for crate stacking. Rig a safety line and pulley high above the place where you will be stacking your crates. The stacker has to stack the crates into a tower as tall as they can, whilst balancing on the top. They need to wear a climbing harness, and helmet, with someone belaying them from the ground.

The team have to pass the crates up to the stacker. Takes guts and teamwork.

Sailing

One way to get the team to work together is to send them on a sailing day. The skipper will teach them how to work as a crew, and they will not only learn how to work together, but also learn a new skill.

Get the Canister from Toxic Area

This is a popular team building challenge. Set up a can inside a taped off area. Give the team some equipment to retrieve the can without touching the ground inside the area. One variation I have done is to attach an ammo box up a tall tree containing supper for the team. They have to use climbing gear to climb up the tree, retrieve the box and return without dropping it inside the area. Inside the box can be anything you want that they can cook over an open fire. We had two chickens in ours. We plucked and prepared them while others in the team made the fire. Lovely.

If you aren’t that adventurous, you can just put sweets in the can.

Motivating teen athletes through team building activities

To make it easier to motivate teams to win and concentrate on improving, the hypothesis used to be that teens should learn about what they did wrong when they failed or lost. Research has shown that teams dramatically improve their morale and winning chances by actually focussing on what they did well and expanding on it. Scientists had athletes watch replays of every game where they performed well, and compared their season’s results with teams who tried to learn from their mistakes. The positive focussed teams significantly outperformed their rivals throughout the season.

So, to boost teen athletes morale, you need to run some challenging team building activities for teenage athletes where they are likely to succeed by working together. You will have to show them at first how to succeed, but once they get it, their morale will begin to lift and you can start increasing the level of challenge. You will be quite pleasantly surprised by the positive outcomes from all of the teens. Smiles all round and high fives.

Morale boosting team building activities for teen athletes

Balance on a brick

How many people can balance on a brick at once? You can use any surface to hand, such as a milk crate. Or how many teens can you get in a phone box or in a car.

Target Practice

Use any projectile to hit a target. Water, paint or flour bombs are the best. The team has to build their contraption for launching their ammo. See which team can fire it the furthest, or get closest to a target. You can also have a battle firing at each other. Eye protection is advised. Get building those trebuchets, catapults, water bombs slings and ballistas.

Parachute Games

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Take one large parachute and get your teen athletes to use it to flip a ball as far as they can. Coordination and communication is key. You can also use two parachutes to pass the ball back and forth.  As a coach, observe carefully how the team communicate with each other to coordinate their moves.  Does a leader emerge who encourages and directs  rest of the team?  Does the team develop an intuition to read each other?

Alternatively, you can buy [amazon_textlink asin=’B079DNVKF8′ text=’strength training parachutes’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’activoutdo-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’19eaa9e2-4d7f-47f3-9f8f-a045be104b37′] for athletes.  These are attached to you by a belt and creates resistance when running.  They are perfect for team building relay games.

More team building activities for teens

Team building activities for teens.

Physical team building activities

Team Bonding Activities

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I have developed and used these military team building activities for army cadet and scout team building. Some of the team building activities simply have a military theme, whilst others are specifically aimed at skills useful for military personnel.

The team building activities are suitable for all arms of the military, cadet forces, scouts and also civilians and students.  You will find ideas for military team building workouts, teamwork exercises, physical activities and team building activities with a military theme.

Military Themed Team Building Activities

Projectiles

Water Bomb Launchers on Amazon

Lobbing and launching objects is always great fun, especially if it is aimed at another team. Each team is given a selection of materials so that they can build a catapult, trebuchet, sling or other launching device.  These can be used  to fling water balloons or eggs at a target. At Halloween, pumpkins can be used for a bit of seasonal fun.
If you want some detailed plans on how to make effective catapults, the book “Plans for catapults and balistas” shows you step by step instructions on how to make several different designs.
Amazon also has plenty of potato cannons and other launchers made from plumbing pipes using bike pumps to create the air pressure and valves to fire the potato.

Firing Blind

Firing Blind is a very successful military team building activity that I created based upon military artillery fire teams and field observers. At one end of a playing field you lay out a large paper target on the ground. At the other end of the field, you suspend a tarpaulin upright using paracord to act as a screen to block the team’s view of the target area. The team is given a water bomb launcher and a large supply of water bombs.

The team has a time limit to get as many water bombs to hit the target, even though they cannot see it because they are behind the tarp. One member of the team acts as an observer and is located between the tarp and the target. They direct the fire team to get the water bombs onto target.

You can adapt the exercise by using walkie talkies for the observer to communicate with the fire team. Or the observer can sit with the fire team and use a pocket sized quadcopter drone to provide a video feed of the target to see where the water bombs land.

This team building activity is really effective at developing team cohesion, leadership, strategy, communication and also coordination. This exercise can also be used by military personnel for a fun way to practise what they do for real which is quick and easy to set up and can be deployed on any open piece of ground.

River Crossings and Bridge Building

Obstacle or river crossings are something that the military will have to deal with on a campaign. It takes teamwork to plan and build the construction of a bridge to get across the river.

You can make your own river defined by two ropes laid out on the grass, or if you are able, use a real river that they have to cross.

Work out in advance how they can use the equipment you provide to make a bridge. It has to be feasible, and it is better if you give them enough equipment to create a variety of different designs. This allows their teamwork and creativity the scope to develop.

Bridge building is one of the best team building activities for teaching and developing leadership skills. The team leader has to recognise individual’s skills and allocate roles accordingly. No team member should be left out.

Depending on the team members, you can make this activity very physical and very mentally challenging. You can really push their engineering skills to the limit. Do they understand how to build a cantilever bridge? This type of bridge doesn’t require you to cross the river first to build it. The simplest form of cantilever bridge is a skewed cross, where the upright beam is placed in the river with the cross member attached to it just above bank height. You can then use ropes to rotate the upright beam and swing the bridge out over the river.

Dodgy Jeep or Landrover

This team building activity creates the military scenario where the team has to get an abandoned vehicle working to escape from the enemy.

I have tried several different versions of this activity, creating faults with the vehicle that have to be fixed such as removing the wheel nuts from one of the wheels. The solution is to remove just one wheel nut from each of the other wheels so that all four wheels are attached using only three nuts instead of four. Other faults you can introduce should relate to stopping the engine from starting. Do not create faults with the brakes!

Another variation is to put the vehicle into a position that requires the team to lift it manually out of a ditch. Think carefully what equipment you will let them have to do this and also it is better to use an old vehicle you don’t mind getting damaged.

Some vehicles also have a switch for multiple fuel tanks.  It takes non-technical people a while to work this one out.

Aerial Observation and Reconnaissance

This military themed team building activity involves using an aerial observation platform to perform reconnaissance on an area of interest and take action on what is seen.

The aerial platform could be a Go Pro camera suspended from a kite, or a quadcopter. You could also use several helium balloons with a suspended Go Pro camera and fishing line to control their position. If you want more control, you can get the teams to lash four poles together to get the height they need. This will challenge their knot skills.

The area of interest has to be created so that the information you want can only be seen from the air. This could be a message attached to the top of a tent. You could write a message and suspend it from the top of a flag pole. You could also fence of an area and put the message on the ground.

Capture the Flag

Capture the flag is basically a game where two teams compete against each other to retrieve a flag or object from the opposition’s base and return it to their own. A variation of this is to have just one base with one team guarding and another team aiming to get in and take the object.

This is a very flexible team building activity, but you have to carefully lay down what the ground rules are. How can a guard stop an enemy from getting into their base? Is contact enough to class the attacker as being caught and having to return to the start, or does a guard have to physically restrain them to capture them? Using Tag Rugby Tails is a simple way of clearly defining someone as being caught. Each play attaches two tails using Velcro to a waistband and if a tail is removed then they have been caught.

Also, you will have to decide what happens if someone is caught. Do they have to return to their own base to start again, or are they out of the game until someone rescues them?

You can buy a glow in the dark capture the flag game from Amazon to play at night, which is usually the favourite time for the game to be played.

Paintball

Paintball is the most one of the most obvious military themed team building activities. Firing paint pellets at each other at a designated paintball place is easy to do. Just pay and turn up. They provide all of the equipment and instruction. The key consideration is whether your players are happy to participate. I have been to several kids paintball parties where children under 13 have been invited and both boys and girls can find it a bit scary because they don’t know what to expect. Or, it may just not be their thing. If you aren’t happy getting hit with a paint pellet that stings then you won’t want to play, and you shouldn’t be forced to either.

Paintball games include Capture the Flag, Storm the Fort, VIP Escort, Hostage Rescue and Free For All.

Laser Tag or Nerf Wars

Laser Tag is similar to paintball but you hit your opponent with a laser beam instead of a paint pellet. This can be played indoors or outdoors. If you plan on organising this team building game frequently, it is well worth investing in your own laser tag equipment.

Airsoft

If you want to make your military team building activities even more realistic, airsoft is similar to paintball but uses replica weapons that fire plastic pellets. Airsoft is played on private land in organised gaming areas. There are a huge range of different weapons to choose from.

Once again, for younger players consider whether this is appropriate. Also, check out the minimum legal age allowed for playing airsoft in your state.

Drops

Drops are a combination of navigation exercises and physical endurance. Drop each team at a location five miles from a visible landmark such as a church or hilltop. The first team to reach the landmark wins. However, each team has to first work out where they are so that they can find the quickest route to their destination.

Depending on how you want to play this game, there are several ways to make it easier or more difficult. You can blindfold the teams as you transport them to their start points so that it is harder to work out where they are at the start. If there are four teams, you can say that each team has to meet up before they reach the destination. This requires communication, leadership and coordination because each team won’t want to wait too long for the others to arrive. You can make it easier by allowing the teams to use public transport. You could also make them collect items from a list on their way, like a scavenger hunt.

Alternatively, there are many OS map reading challenges and games you could use as team building activities.

Team Building Activities for Military Personnel Training

CASEVAC

This is a vital military team building activity that the Army have to get right. I have seen many videos of soldiers not correctly getting casualties out of dangerous situations properly. In recent conflicts, there was even a case where a team of soldiers evacuated a wounded team member to a place of safety and then just left them at the side of the road instead of carrying them to the rescue vehicle that awaited. They had expected the medics to take over, whilst the medics expected the soldiers to load their colleague into the vehicle.  Communication and coordination would have helped.

This physical team building activity is for both military and civilians alike. The exercise is to rescue a non-walking casualty and transport them over a distance to safety. You can do this by using a stretcher, an improvised stretcher (coats and poles) or just by carrying using a two handed or four handed seat method. Ensure that the evacuation route includes hills, ditches or fences as obstacles to make it more challenging. It requires some serious teamwork to keep a stretcher level whilst getting it over a fence.

Pole Bearers

This is a common team building activity used by the military. Each team has to carry a telegraph pole or railway sleeper across an obstacle course. The sheer weight of the pole requires everyone in the team to work together. To see how the team work together when they are physically exhausted, give them a heavy load to move as a military team building physical activity. This requires physical strength, coordination, and strong leadership to maintain team morale.

Cannon Run

Racing across a course with a full sized gun is one of the military teamwork challenges that is done for competitions. And I don’t mean a rifle, I mean a gun carriage or cannon. The wheels have to be taken off and the entire gun dismantled to get it across some of the obstacles.  At the other end it has to be reassembled and fired to show the winner.

You might not have access to a cannon, but you can do a similar exercise with a bike or car.  Use anything that can be dismantled, taken across a course and reassembled and used to show it works.

Obstacle Courses

The military assault course is a popular one for teams, but you need to arrange it so that the team has to work together. Getting the team to climb over 10 foot walls is a great show of teamwork.

Tank Paintball

Experience Tank paintball at Armourgeddon in Leicestershire UK

If you want some more team building ideas, check out my outdoor team building activities.

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What is the Point of Ice Breaker Games?

A key reason why teams fail to work is due to a poor understanding of who everyone is and what they are good at. A good team leader needs to know what skills each team member has, what their preferences are, which all leads to identifying what the best role is for that person in the team.

Ice breaker games provide a way for team member to get to know each other in a supportive and unthreatening environment. The perfect ice breaker activities are designed to encourage people to get to know each other without feeling insecure or foolish.

How to run Ice Breaker Games

Ice breaker games are best run at the start of a team building activity day. After the initial welcome drinks, get everyone sitting down and explain what the ice breaker game is all about. Make sure that you have organised any resources such as pens and paper beforehand.

If the ice breaker activities involve people standing up on their own and speaking to everyone, make sure that you ask someone who you feel is more confident to do so to go first. This will give support to those team members who are more reserved, shy or embarrassed by the whole team building thing.

Ice Breaker Games Ideas

Who Can…?

This ice breaker game needs you to give out a sheet of letter sized paper to everyone. The piece of paper is divided up into 9 boxes, each with an unusual skill in it. The skills could include juggling, play the drums, ride a unicycle, hold their breath for one minute etc. This should be printed in advance.

The group is then given ten minutes to find someone in the room who can do one skill from each box and write their name in the box. By encouraging people to only write their name in one box per piece of paper, people will have to talk to more of their colleagues.

Once the time is up, get everyone to sit down and you can go through each box and find out who has what skills. This will now give everyone something that they can talk to each other about when starting a conversation.

Amazing Facts

The thumb ball is a very useful resource to have for icebreakers. It is a 6 inch ball with different topics written on it. You throw e ball to a team member who then has to say something about themselves relating to the category that is under their thumb on the ball.

Amazing facts is a similar ice breaker game that involves everyone standing up one at a time and saying one amazing fact about something they have done. This could be that they have skydived, or lived in seven different countries, or that they have a reptile for a pet.

You could also ask them to say what their biggest achievement is. That may give people more scope to come up with something. They might say that being a mum is the best thing that they have done.

True of False, or 2 Truths 1 Lie

Each person takes it in turn to stand up and say three statements about themselves. Two of the statements must be true, and one must be a lie. The rest of the group has to guess which is the lie and why they think so. You can learn some amazing things about people in this ice breaker game.

Punch Lines

This involves splitting the group into teams and giving each team a piece of paper with a wacky sentence on it. The team then have to make a two minute play where the sentence is said. At the end, the other teams have to guess what the line was.

Sort it Out

The goal of this ice breaker is to get everyone to line up in a particular order. This has to be related to a fact about the person. It could be in age order, birthday, where they live from North to South, or any other criteria you can think of.

Categories

Everyone is given 10 minutes to talk to five other people and write down information according to some categories they have been given.

The categories could include:

• What is your favourite food?
• What is your best memory?
• What is your favourite hobby?
• What is your favourite place in the world that you have been to or want to visit?

At the end of this ice breaker, the group does not have to report back, but you can choose a few selected highlights if you wish.

Draw Me

Provide everyone with a sheet of paper and a marker pen. They are given 10 minutes to draw a picture or cartoon that represents themselves. It can be absolutely anything, even just a smile.

Examples they could draw are a dog if they love dogs, a musical instrument, a hobby, or a place. When the time is up, each person has to stand up one at a time and say why what they have drawn says something about who they are.

This is one of the most successful ice breaker games, as it gives people the freedom to express themselves freely, giving away as much or little about themselves as they like.

Birds of a Feather

For this ice breaker game, you will need to have some open space for people to move around in. The organiser calls out a category, such as “your favourite hobby.” Everyone then has to get into a group with anyone who has the same favourite hobby as themselves. This will involve talking to everyone. After a while, the groups will form.

The great thing about this ice breaker is that it enables people to form groups of like minded individuals. They will immediately have something to talk to each other about for the rest of the team building activities.

More Team Building Ideas

If you like these ice breaker games ideas, why not read the complete list of team building activity ideas.

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