Team Building Activity 3:
Match Game

This is a good activity to play with 8 to 18 people.

The odds are that you've played this game before, only not as part of a team.

The object of the game is to lift up overturned wastebaskets and match the pairs of items found underneath.

So your first task is to scour your office cleaing out wastebaskets. You'll need at least 20 of them, but more is better. You'll then need to find items that your teams can match to one another. I like to use fruit because then the teams can simply eat the props when the game is done!

You don't need 10 different fruits though to match. There's no reason you can't match one set of single apples, one set or 2 apples and one set of three apples. You can then do the same with bananas, oranges, pears, carrots, or whatever you like.

Then you simply set up a grid of overturned baskets with the paired items hidden underneath. Set a line 10 feet back from the grid and have the teams take turns turning over pairs of buckets. If they make a match they keep the items found underneath. Once all the items have been uncovered the team with the most matched pairs wins.

If you want to make it easier, you can remove the baskets once the paired items have been matched. I prefer to leave the overturned buckets in the game though.

I've played this with 2 and 3 teams taking turns and going head to head. It's up to you to decide the size and number of teams and the number of baskets in the grid.

This is a good activity for identifying people who like to take charge and for witnessing the ways various people communicate with one another.

I also usually make it the best 2 out of 3, just to heighten the level of competition a little more.