Team-building: Paper Towers

The first week of school, my classes participated in several types of team-building activities to foster a healthy community in the classroom.  One of these activities was a challenge to build the tallest possible tower out of computer paper without the use of any type of adhesive.  It was extraordinarily fun to watch the students work with their groups and brainstorm the best way to complete the task.  There were so many ideas, and so many possibilities.  Through this task, the students learned:

• Teamwork: Students had to put their heads and hands together to complete the task.
• Creativity: They really had to stretch their imaginations to visualize what building method would be the best option!
• Mistakes are okay: Students understood that if something wasn't working with their tower, they needed to go back and alter their methods for building it.  
• Never to give up: Even if the towers fell at the last moment, teams still tried their best at the challenge.

This year's sophomores had an extra-special task.  They had done the same exercise the year before, and so to compensate for them using their previous experience to build, I added the extra rule that not only did their tower have to be the highest, but it also had to support the weight of a small ball on the top.  This made the task much more difficult, but they worked through it!  Afterward, we talked about the way our towers represented their growing knowledge of English, and how the ball symbolized the extra challenges, additional responsibilities, and other obstacles to their learning that they might face this year.  We also discussed how the strategies they used to overcome this additional challenge were alike to the problem-solving skills they'd need to use in school.  All in all,  I'm enormously proud of them!

Some pictures from the activity are below:

It was an absolutely fun, useful activity.  Thanks to my husband for suggesting it!