Theme

Teamwork

Age Range

Below 14

Type

Activities

Number of Participants

4+

Timescale

20-30 minutes

Quick overview

A useful activity for teaching young people the importance of working as a team and the need for others/ community. While any age will probably enjoy it, the activity works best with those at the young end of secondary school and those in primary school.

Supplies you’ll need

Large paper (enough for every group with spares), different coloured pens/pencils (enough different colours for everyone in the small group).

Leading the Activity

Split the group into sets of 4-10. Provide each young person with a different colour pen and explain they have to create a picture in their groups. They are not allowed to use anyone else’s pen or trade their pen for someone else’s.

You can assign them an image to create or leave it up to them. However, with younger children or groups who may find teamwork or imagination harder, it can be helpful to assign an image you know will give them all involvement in the task.

If the group is small, you may like to give them more than one colour each to help them with the task.

If you have left image creation up to the young people, you may like to make it into a competition where the winning team is the one which creates the nicest picture using an abundance of different colours.

Group discussion

Once you have done the activity, you may like to have the young people reflect on their experience by either having a large or small group discussion. You could ask questions like:

• Was this a difficult task for the group? Why/why not?
• What ways did you find helped your group complete the picture?
• Is it easier to do things by yourself or with others?
• Why is it important to be able to work well with others in a team?

God Link

This activity is a great way of getting the young people to understand the body of Christ and their place in it and the Church. As individuals, they have their own gifts and talents and if they put them at the service of Christ he will use them for some definite purpose.

They are not a mistake; they are valuable and, even when they don’t feel like it, they are essential and loved. Useful scripture for this is Romans 12:5, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, Ephesians 3:6 and 5:23, Colossians 1:18 and Colossians 1:24.

From here you can lead them into a form of prayer where they can offer their talents to God.