Team building activities for blended families occur less frequently since technology is more common in households. While technology opens up to discoveries for teens and young children, families gather less. On top of homework and extra-curricular activities, families don’t even eat together at dinner time.
So what can you do to build up teamwork between family members? Team building is an important skill to develop mainly for blended families. As more families congregate with different backgrounds and traditions, team building will become part of daily lives.
Sharing and communicating are essential components for blended families as children and parents come together in a shared household. Perhaps, the one time that you might get to talk to your children might be during team building activities.
Organizing team building activities for blended families don’t have to be complicated. On the other hand, make these activities about spending time together and have fun.
Scavenger Hunts
You’ve probably played scavenger hunt games when you were younger. The game is a simple task of hiding an item and asking others to seek the object. The fun part is that family members can compete with each other who gets the item first.
Perhaps, you can gather the family in the kitchen while you hide the thing in the living room. Then, ask family members to look for the hidden item. You can also have fun music playing in the background or a countdown until someone finds it.
Teams of family members work together to use a clue to go from one area to another until they see the item. This game promotes collaboration and communication between family members.
Family Game Nights
Whether a card or a board game fascinates you, families can form teams to work together to see who wins first. Family game nights are ideal ways to incorporate collaboration.
How can a silly card or board game help with team building? By working to solve how to beat the game and your opponent, gamers must use problem strategies to get to the next level or to win.
If you have young children that might not understand rules just yet, you can always opt for games like Candy Land. Simple games without too much structure help to achieve the same goal.
Charades
Perhaps, you’ve played charades as a young child in school or at birthday parties. One of the most engaging parts of charades is team collaborations. You can gather your family in teams to draw or mimic particular cartoon sayings or favorite characters from TV shows or movies.
The main idea with team building charades is to work together to solve what the charade represents and wins the game. If you have young children, this game can be ideal for them to play out with signs or drawings.
Word Games
As much as young children like movement in games, older kids might enjoy word games. In this type of team-building strategy, select words that generate positive meanings. Choose words that convey a message of collaboration with blended families.
For example, pick a theme of words for a favorite vacation spot or an activity the whole family enjoyed. Add these words to another team building game like scavenger hunts or charades.
Tower Building
For the builders in the family, a fun team building activity of a tower with household items is a crowd-pleaser. First, gather spaghetti noodles or craft sticks and marshmallows. Use a timer and designate team members.
Place a certain amount of spaghetti sticks on the table and marshmallows. Set the timer to 90 to 120 seconds and tell family members to begin assembling. The purpose of the interactive game is to develop team-building skills between members.
Team partners need to come up with a solution of a steady tower with a specific time frame. If you have young children, use craft sticks with rounded edges.
Musical Chairs
Why not play fun tunes during a game of musical chairs? Designate one person to handle the music while team members go around a set of chairs in the middle of the room.
Then, encourage others to work together to move chairs around. You can also use different tunes to play ‘guess the song’ instead of going around the chairs.
Water Collection
When the weather is warm, playing water games is an ideal way to get the family moving. Collect empty water bottles or paper cups and set them aside. Next, set a bucket of water on one side and count 20 steps from the bucket.
Then, instruct team member to collect as much water as possible to fill up an empty milk jug or another container. In this team-building strategy, you ask a family member to work together to solve how many time they will gather water to fill up the jug.
Tug-of-War
Another team-building strategy for blended families is a game of tug-of-war. Divide family members into two groups. Then, use a sturdy rope and place a colored cloth in the middle. Next, put one team on one side and the other team on the other side.
Designate a time when both teams will pull on the rope until one of the teams crosses the line. For extra fun, you can use a puddle of mud or a pool of water to catch the other side fall into an unforeseen destination.
Fundraising Together
One of the most valuable team-building strategies is working together to help someone else. While collecting funds for a school fundraiser or sports event, you build team collaboration skills.
From planning the fundraiser to setting up flyers, you bond with family members in invaluable memorable ways. This collaboration teaches young children to care about those around them and to work together.
Helping Community Organization
Much like working together in fundraisers is valuable, assisting in a community event fosters even more team building. Whether collecting winter coats or food cans is a task you encourage throughout the year, develop a sense of community by visiting a center that needs help.
Why not visit the local food bank or community shelter to see where extra hands are needed? Team building to work towards a common goal increases family morale and communication between family members.
Which team building activity for blended families will you use? Please share your thoughts below in the comment section.
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BMascarenowriter | Math4Bilinguals 