Practicing Teamwork!
Learn the importance of teamwork and cooperation.

Introduction:
In the Maya & Miguel episode “Come on Down!” Maya and Miguel are contestants on a TV game show. But rather than working together, they start competing. Only when they realize that “together they win” and “divided they fall” do they really learn what it means to work as a team.

In this series of mini-activities, your children will learn the importance of working cooperatively as a team.

In the process, the children will also learn that working together as a team is a fun, rewarding experience. In fact, sometimes groups accomplish what individuals cannot!

The following mini-activities are designed to emphasize cooperation, teamwork, and a non-competitive spirit. Some of them are physical; some involve listening and speaking. Since these activities are about teamwork and cooperation, there must be a minimum of 3-4 participants, and plenty of space to move around.

Materials:

• scarves

Directions:

• Telephone: Invite your children to sit in a circle, and tell them you are going to play the game Telephone. Explain how it works. In this version of the game, the group’s objective is to work well enough together that the original message is accurately relayed at the end of the “transmission.” Play this a few times.
  
• Doing “the Wave”: While still in a circle, explain that now the group is going to make a “wave.”  In order to do this, your children must pay close attention to the movement of the person before them. When it is their turn, they should lift their arms to the ceiling. Make the wave go all the way around the circle. Now see how quickly you can make it go! Try it from a seated position. Then, try it standing.
  
• Tell a Story Around the Circle: Ask your children to now try “passing” a story around the circle. Explain to them that the story needs to have a beginning, middle, and end. Each person will contribute to the story’s development, until everyone in the group has had a chance to add their part. Continue going around the circle until the story comes to a logical conclusion, or at least until someone comes up with a clever way to end it! 
  
• Three-Legged Race: For this activity, you will need to divide your children into teams. Two people will work together. You will need to tie their inner legs together with a scarf. Decide on a starting line and a finish line. Watch the pairs work together!
  
• Making a Human Machine: Invite your children to create a “machine” together with their bodies! Make sure you have ample space for everyone to join in. One child begins by repeating a simple motion. Then, one at a time, making sure they somehow connect with someone else in the machine, the other children add on a unique repeated motion, until everyone in the group is attached to at least one other person. Then invite your children to do it another time. This time introduce a repeating sound to accompany each motion!

Talk About It: Invite your children to share what they liked best about these activities. Discuss how cooperation did or did not affect each mini-activity. Discuss the value of teamwork. Invite your children to think of other instances in which cooperation and teamwork make a real difference.

Take It Further: Build your children’s sense of cooperation and teamwork by participating in one of the activities below:

• As a group, do a neighborhood clean-up project.
• As a group, design and create a mural.
• Organize a group treasure hunt.