Theme

Teamwork

Age Range

7-18

Type

Games

Number of Participants

1-5

Timescale

5-10 minutes

Quick overview

Working as a team, pairs of young people must take it in turns to see how many sweets they can get.

Game type

Energiser/ trust builder

Supplies you’ll need

A box of individually wrapped sweets e.g. roses, celebrations etc., A single piece of cardboard, wood or carpet etc. that is large enough for two people to stand on at the same time. Masking Tape.

Prep

Place the cardboard/wood/carpet slab on the floor. To ensure it does not slip, you may want to tape it down. Once done, mark out a large square area around the slab with the masking tape and have the square in the middle. You will want to make sure that the side of the marked out square is too far away from the slab that the young people will not be able to reach it while stood on the slab.

Once the area is marked, scatter sweets within the square, ensuring that they would be hard to reach if you were standing on the board by yourself. You may like to have some sweets so far away that they would be almost impossible to reach with the two working together, as this both challenges them and helps them realise their limits.

Game run-through

Once set up, have your group split into pairs. Have them form a line at the side of the square and challenge each pair in turn to try and get as many sweets as they can by working with their partner.

Give them the following rules:

• Both you and your partner must be on the slab at all times
• No part of your body or clothing may touch the floor at any time. If you do touch the floor you and your partner must go to the back of the line and will have to try again later
• You may not slide the slab
• You must pick up the sweets, not drag them
• You may not use anything but your hand to pick up the sweets, no belts or pieces of clothing
• Whatever sweets you pick up you and your partner can keep
• Once you step on the slab you have only 30 seconds before you must change over with the next pair

You may want to have an extra supply of sweets to replenish those taken in the game.

If there are sweets that are particular favourites, you may like to place these further away to add an additional challenge.

Depending on the height of the group members you may want to move the sweets further or closer away.

Solution

To achieve the challenge, one partner holds the other partner steady while they reach out to get the sweets.