Teamwork activities for Key Stage 1 pupils

Oct 11 2023

Three children away from the camera, toward a camping pod at Runway's End

Getting your Key Stage 1 pupils out of the classroom and working as a team is a valuable part of communication development and growth. Teambuilding also helps form relationships and develops children’s confidence in their own abilities. Our instructors know how important it is for KS1 pupils to be engaged and enthusiastic while they’re learning, so here are our suggestions for teambuilding activities.

Why is communication important?

Communication itself isn’t just about the use of understanding skills like listening and understanding words; it’s also built in pre-verbal skills.

More than 10% of children have long-term speech, language, and communication needs. Similarly, 2.3% of children have language disorders associated with conditions like autism or hearing impairment. So, learning to communicate non-verbally is crucially important.

Non-verbal communication includes:

  • Desiring to be with and interact with others
  • Seeking out communication for a purpose
  • Responding to others
  • Sharing an activity or paying attention to a shared activity
  • Turn-taking
  • Picking up on and reacting to non-verbal cues
  • Allowing others into your physical space

A great way to build non-verbal communication skills is through teambuilding games.

A group of Key Stage 1 children throw plastic balls

Teambuilding activities

For Key Stage 1 pupils, prioritise non-competitive games that focus on communication rather than problem-solving. All of our suggestions can either be played in the playground or at one of our centres.

Shrinking island

This activity helps students practice responding to others and seeking out communication for a purpose.

Equipment

  • 1 x tarpaulin laid out on the floor

Safety

  • No lifting or carrying anyone

Instructions

You are stranded on an island (tarpaulin) and due to the rising tide, it keeps getting smaller.

  1. Start with the tarp at full size and everyone must stand on the tarp.
  2. Everyone off, the tarp will now be folded in half: can you fit now?
  3. Repeat until you can no longer all fit.

To make the game more difficult, ask your pupils to try to flip the tarpaulin with everyone on it, or tell them that their feet can’t touch the ground.

Three children play gutterball

Gutter ball

Gutter ball helps children learn to pay attention during a shared activity and take turns.

Equipment

  • Enough gutter sections for every pupil to have one piece each
  • 2-4 tennis balls
  • Cones – start line markers
  • 2-4 buckets – finish markers

Instructions

  1. Give one piece of gutter to each pupil. They can only touch their own piece of gutter.
  2. The aim is to get the tennis ball from the start to the finish of the course.
  3. No one can touch the tennis ball and it can only travel forwards in the gutter.
  4. You cannot move if the ball is in your section of gutter.

If the ball hits the ground, you must start again. To increase the difficulty, either add more balls to the challenge, or ask the team to complete the challenge without dropping any of the balls.

The floor is lava

This teambuilding activity encourages children to practice allowing others into their physical space and sharing an activity.

Equipment

  • Hoops, cones, rubber discs, or anything that children can safely stand on

Instructions

  1. Ask your pupils to imagine that the floor is hot lava.
  2. Lay out hoops, cones, or rubber discs on the floor and ask them to get across the floor to the other side without falling into the lava (stepping on the floor) using only the equipment supplied.

You can add or take away safe places to stand to make the game easier or harder.

A group of children play inner tube

Inner tube challenge

This game helps pupils practice responding to others, turn-taking, and seeking out communication for a purpose.

Equipment

  • 1 hoop or inner tune per team
  • Stopwatch

Safety

  • Don’t over-stretch or ping the inner tube

Instructions

  1. Get your whole team to pass fully through the inner tube in the quickest time. They can decide the best method to do this. 
  2. Each team gets 3 attempts to get the best time possible.
  3. The time starts when the first person touches the inner tube and ends when the last person is clear.
Two young children in warm coats run through an autumnal woodland

Now you’ve had a chance to give teambuilding activities a try in the playground, visit our centres and build on what you’ve already achieved. Our instructors run wonderful programmes for every age group, and you can choose to focus on certain skills like teamwork and communication. So, book a trip today.

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