Games for teachers

Movement and body based games:

1. All teachers are blindfolded (or they simply agree to keep their eyes closed.) Divide yourselves into groups of five or six. Each group will be given a rope and the members in the group have to work together to make a rectangle (ensure that each team has more than four members). Then you can try making a circle. Whichever team makes the best rectangle or circle wins. Add rules like- no talking, no touching each other, no giggling, or no instructions
2. The teachers have to form two circles—one inside the other. The teachers in the outer circle will each have a balloon or a ball with them which they have to balance on the head of the person standing in front of them in the inner circle. The teachers in the outer circle are allowed to use only one hand to balance the ball. The entire circle must move together without letting any balls fall.
3. Form teams of four. A referee names a combination of body parts like two ears, two shoulders, three elbows, two knees, five heels and one nose. Now the objective of each team is to join these body parts together to form a chain. The catch is that only the mentioned body parts should be touching to form a chain and not any other part of the body. For instance, if the combination announced is one shoulder, one elbow, two ears and three knees then the teachers have to use one person’s shoulder and place another person’s elbow on it and then connect these to two ears, which in turn will be connected to three knees and so on to form the chain.  
4. Play this game in teams of two (or even more). Each team has to hold a piece of paper, pen or eraser between the backs of their hands (or index fingers, or shoulders) and move through the room without the object falling. Give different tasks to the teams - dance, pick up a ball from the floor, drink a glass of water and so on. Add variations - no speaking, blind folded, and so on.

   Thinking and problem solving games:

1. Form into groups. The game is to release a marble from a height to its destination at the bottom. For this each group has to build a marble track in the staffroom. To build the track, the teams will only be allowed to use things available in the staffroom - books, napkins, pens, pins, dupattas, etc. Teams are not allowed to roll any kind of paper to make pipes. The team whose marbles all reach the end first is the winner.
2. This game you can play standing or sitting in a group in a circle. A large can or hat will be given to the group. Player one will put the can / hat on his or her feet and then pass this around the circle using only the feet. The group can develop strategies to make the round completed as early as possible.
3. Guess what I am shopping for? This game is similar to the 20 questions game. One team member pretends to be shopping for something and the others have to guess by asking yes/no questions. The same can be played as dumb charades or pictionary.
4. Pieces of paper with tasks written on them are distributed among players. Each player must perform the task written on the paper they receive. For each task there should be an opposing task and this secret none of the players will know. Therefore, if one person’s task will be to “open the window”, another person would have got the task of “closing the window”.

   Verbal games:

1. Team A divides itself into two groups and each group stands on the left and right side of the room about 20 meters apart. Team B stands in the middle of the two groups. A referee whispers a word to the left group of team A. All the members in the left group must call out this word so that right group of team A understands the word. Team B tries to prevent the right group from hearing the word by screaming, shouting and screeching. How many words can get through in a defined time? Teams then switch positions.
2. The whole group sits in a circle. A scene is given (say a railway platform scene). The first player has to say something related to the theme starting with the letter ‘A’ (eg: “A man is taking away my bag!”). Player two responds to this by saying something stating with B (eg: “But he is our Coolie only”). The third player continues with C and so on till the group reaches Z.
3. Since most teachers tend to be very logical - this simple game will bring out their creative and humorous side. Simple academic questions are asked - but the participants have to come up with completely crazy yet related answers. Eg: What is an triangle? (possible answers: “It’s when you try seeing things from different angles” or “It’s when three people are fighting with each other” etc.
    

Visual games:

1. First each participant draws something that represents them. For example I may draw a 'tree' to symbolize that I 'give' or provide. Keep this aside. Now each participant should draw how they see the others. (If anybody claims that they do not know some of the others remind them that most of us have an image of even people we have only seen and not really interacted with). Keep these pictures aside. Now, each participant draws how they would like to be seen by others. Encourage participants to draw freely and frankly - this exercise can be very meaningful and profound. Now distribute the pictures that you have drawn of others to them. Discuss the drawings. Avoid comments like "how can you draw this for me", etc. Strictly no put downs.
2. Tape a large numbers of sheets (or even old newspapers) on the floor to make a huge hoarding. Now the group is given liquid (water or poster) colours - and using only fingers (or you may try restricting to only ‘feet’) the group needs to paint a huge elephant. Each participant has to contribute.
3. People work in teams of two. Left hand of one and right of another are tied together in such a way that they cannot use these hands. So as a team they have one working left hand and one working right hand. They need to make a craft item (something that requires cutting, pasting, arranging, etc).
4. Each participant thinks of an object and draws it on the top part of a piece of paper. The paper is passed to the right. This person looks at the object, folds the paper over so that the object cannot be seen and writes down what he has seen. The paper is passed to the right again. This person now draws the word / phrase which has been written down. After 2-3 rounds, the first picture is compared with the final picture.
5. A variation of the above game is an appreciation game. All participants sit in a circle. Each person has one sheet and writes his or her name at the bottom of the sheet. Now each passes their sheet to their right. Whose ever sheet you get, at the top, you write one positive thought about that person and then fold the paper and pass it to your right. So everybody writes on others’ sheets, folds and passes. This way each writes at least one word of appreciation for each participant. Finally everybody gets their sheet back - for keepsake.

   Loosen your hair, shed your loads of books away, stretch yourself, grin, because you are soon going to laugh all your teaching blues away!