A very enjoyable and playful way to create valuable agreements is the so-called 'Group Juggle'.

This is a method to discover which values are important to a group. I have done this activity many times with adults and children, and each time I am amazed at how simple it is and how much can be achieved together.

Explanation:
You stand in a circle together. A ball or a soft throwable object is tossed to each other. It is important that the object is thrown to everyone once before it is thrown back to you as the facilitator.

Next, you will practice the fixed order. So, the object goes from person A to person B, then to person C, and finally back to you as the facilitator. Once that is achieved, you ask a question;

"What is important for all of you as a group to work together?"

Usually, values like these come up:

• Respect
• Trust
• Honesty
• Love
• Collaboration, etc.

One value is chosen, and the group works with it. If the task is successful, another value can be chosen, then a third, and so on.

Task:

1. Choose an object that symbolizes the selected value (there are several objects on the ground, I often bring different stuffed animals). 
2. Throw the object to someone in the group while stating the value out loud. The object is passed around, and each time someone throws it, they mention the value. Everyone receives the object once, and finally, it returns to the person who started. So, there is a specific order. 
3. If this is successful without the object falling, you can take it a step further; Choose and name a second value, and introduce another object that symbolizes that value. Now, two objects go around the circle in the previously established order. If this works with two objects (in the right order), you can introduce a third value, and so on! Depending on what happens in the group, you can make interventions; in simple terms: You can ask questions like: "What makes it successful?" or "What makes it not work?"

If the group works well together, focused, you can perhaps go up to 5 or more objects.

Variation: You can also introduce a so-called 'BOK' (GOAT in English). This represents the person in a group who always opposes or challenges others. This object goes around the circle in the opposite direction!

The video below gives an idea of how it can unfold. It is a very old recording from one of the first times I used this activity. I was working with the 'church council' of our community, and they chose the values: 'faith, hope, love'.

The Net and the Balloon is a powerful team-building activity that raises awareness of group dynamics and patterns in various ways and variations.

This activity promotes:

• Collaboration
• Insight into patterns
• Making agreements
• Discussing each other's contributions to the team

Instructions:

Duration: 30 minutes - 45 minutes
Participants: Perform the activity in teams of 6 to 8 participants
Outdoor and optionally indoors in a large space

Materials needed:
- A long rope, approximately 15 meters (bring ropes of different lengths to find the most suitable one). When participants hold hands and create the largest possible circle, you have the correct length of the rope.
- A balloon

Gameplay:
Form a circle with 6 to 8 participants, ensuring enough space between each person. Participants hold the rope with their right hand (with the ends of the rope tied together to form a circle). With their other hand, they grasp the rope across from them and pull it towards themselves, creating a net. Place a balloon on top of this net, symbolizing the value of the team that they need to cherish.

Assign various tasks, such as:

- The team must move together.
- One member takes more responsibility (pulls harder).
- One member slacks off (stops pulling).
- Two team members have a conflict (pulling and letting go in opposite directions).
- Two team members switch roles (change places).
- One team member is removed from the team (letting go).
- Lack of focus (one or more team members close their eyes). You can create various situations based on these examples.

You can also have the team navigate an obstacle course during the exercise, adding complexity and symbolizing real-life problems teams may encounter.

The goal is to keep the balloon from falling.

Note: The rope should not be too thin to prevent participants from getting cut.

Evaluation:
What happened during the activity?
How did it make you feel?
What insights or lessons would you like to take away from this exercise?

This type of activity is always highly valuable when guided properly; participants experience how group dynamics work, observe what happens within the group, identify leaders, determine agreements, and establish clear goals. Special thanks to Heleen van Tol!!

This activity promotes:

• Seeking help
• Leadership
• Trust
• Insight into group dynamics

Instructions:

Duration: 30 minutes
Participants: 5 to 15
Indoor and Outdoor
Non-active

Materials required:
Sufficient blindfolds, a suitable physically safe environment

Procedure:

1. Divide the group into two teams: Team 1 and Team 2.

2. Team 1 is responsible for the route from point A to point B, and Team 2 is responsible for the route from point B to point C.

3. Walk the entire route together, indicating the locations of points B and C.

4. The task is to safely guide the entire group, blindfolded, from point A to point C.

5. Both teams have approximately 15 minutes to explore their respective routes.

6. Facilitators accompany the entire group to explore the route and return to the starting point together.

7. Distribute blindfolds, briefly reiterate the instructions, and wish them success.

8. Variation: Choose your favorite spot and guide the blindfolded group from point A to your favorite spot. The rest is open to interpretation (Note: Participants can do this individually, with a partner, or as a group).

Evaluation:

- How did you feel as an individual?
- What happened within the group?
- How did your team make decisions?
- Who took on leadership within the team?
- Did the leadership shift occur once, twice, or more? Why and when?
- What qualities emerged within your team?
- Did you discover qualities in your colleagues that you were unaware of?
- How did the different qualities complement each other?
- What conflicts arose, and how did you resolve them?
- How well did everyone listen to each other?
- How much freedom was there to present ideas?

This activity promotes:

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Making agreements
• And who knows what else

Below is the instruction:

Duration: 20 minutes
Participants: 8 to 12
Indoor and Outdoor
Active

Required materials
None

Initial setup:
Have the participants stand in a circle while listening to the instructions.

Gameplay / Rules:

Everyone is spread out in the space. The group is responsible for ensuring that there is always one person walking. The rest remain still.
When the walker stops, someone else must seamlessly take over walking, but when someone who is standing starts walking, the walker must immediately stop. Everyone needs to be very alert.
The exercise can be expanded by allowing two and then three people to walk.

Differentiation:
This activity is somewhat similar to "Count off".

Evaluation:
-How did it go? What was the result?
-How did the coordination go?
-What will you take away from this?

Chicken baseball is a fun game that provides a refreshing change and generates a lot of energy.

This activity promotes:
- Collaboration
- Fun
- And who knows what else

Below are the instructions:

Duration: 15 minutes
Participants: 8 to 40
Indoor and Outdoor
Active

Materials Needed:
Stuffed animal; chicken

Initial Setup:
Divide the group into two teams.

Framework:
Chicken baseball shares similarities with regular baseball, as there is a fielding team and a batting team. However, that's about the only resemblance.

Gameplay:

The batting team starts by tossing the chicken into the playing field.

Once the chicken is thrown, the fielding team rushes towards it and forms a line behind the chicken. The first person in line picks up the chicken and passes it over their head to the second person. The second person passes it between their legs to the third person, and so on. When the last person in line has the chicken, they shout "STOP."

Meanwhile, the batting team scores points. One point is scored when the batter completes a lap around the entire team.

When the fielding team shouts "STOP," the roles switch. The fielding team becomes the batting team, and the person holding the chicken starts at point 1 of the procedure.

Everyone should have a turn throwing the chicken.

Evaluation:
Did everyone execute the correct technique? If not, what do the referees on the sidelines think the consequences should be?
Did the teams play fairly?
Was it challenging to ensure everyone had a turn?
Was it difficult to come up with an order for everyone's turn?
Did everyone participate?
Did they do so because it was a competition or for another reason?

Points to Consider:
The chicken may cause some attention and commotion. You can address this in the evaluation or let it pass for now.

Do not underestimate it; this game can reveal a lot about collaboration and communication patterns. You can announce this in advance.

This activity promotes:

- Collaboration
- Making agreements
- Focus
- And who knows what else

Below are the instructions:

Duration: 20 minutes
Participants: 8 to 16
Indoor and Outdoor
Active

Materials Needed:
Balls or other objects suitable for safe tossing.

Initial Setup:
Arrange the participants in a circle.

Framework:
This is a game that requires good concentration. Each round becomes more challenging to avoid dropping the ball, and it can be helpful to make agreements with each other.

Gameplay:
Start with 1 ball. One player throws the ball into the air, and another player must catch it. If this is achieved without the ball touching the ground, another ball is added.
Now, 2 players simultaneously throw a ball into the air. Each time all the balls in play are caught, another ball is added.
All balls must be thrown into the air simultaneously, and a ball must not be caught by the thrower.
If a ball is not caught, the group starts again with 1 ball. Unfortunately.

Further Differentiation:
Can the group perform better when they are allowed to set their own goal, for example?

Have the participants switch places when they are doing exceptionally well. Does it still work as smoothly?

Evaluation:
Are there people with good ideas?
Are they being listened to?
What ideas have you heard?
Have you held back any ideas?

Points to Consider:
Since this game can be somewhat frustrating, it is important for the group to have experienced some success beforehand.

Safety Check:
Be careful to avoid players trying to catch the same ball, potentially colliding with each other's heads.

This is a very well-known game, but no less fun or effective, especially because you can easily transfer it to the workplace.

This activity promotes:
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Focus
- And who knows what else

Below are the instructions:

Duration: 45 minutes
Participants: 6 or more
Indoor and Outdoor
Active

Materials Needed:
- Balls/marbles of different sizes
- Half PVC pipes as gutters for all participants

Initial Setup:
Create a long playing field with a starting line and a finishing line. Place enough gutters and a variety of marbles of different sizes at the starting line. Position a bucket at the finishing line to collect the balls. Have the participants stand behind the starting line and ask them to wait before picking up a gutter.

Framework:
Explain to the participants that the gutters and balls symbolize a transport system (e.g., a student tracking system, a gold transport system, passenger flows, or anything else relevant to the group). Take a gutter and a ball, and demonstrate how the system works. Explain that there are large and small balls (representing challenging and easy students/passengers) and that they earn different points. Now, state the objective of the game: try to get as many POINTS as possible into the bucket at the finishing line as a team.

Gameplay:
Give the participants 5 minutes initially to experiment and discuss before starting the game.
The game has several rules that can be experimented with. The most important rules are:
- A ball must be introduced into the system BEFORE the starting line and can only be touched by one person.
- If a ball falls, it must be RETURNED to the starting line.
- Participants are not allowed to walk with a ball in their gutter.

Further Differentiation:
Additional rules to consider:
- Whether or not to pivot.
- Whether or not the gutters can touch each other.
- Whether or not the balls can roll back.
- All participants must start before the starting line and can only cross the starting line once the first ball is in the system.

Evaluation:
There are various ways to evaluate this game. One interesting aspect is that people always think in terms of competition. But what was the task?

How is the discussion conducted? Is knowledge from the other team (department within a company) utilized?

Safety Check:
Beware of objects that have fallen on the ground and remained there.

This activity serves as an icebreaker, team-building exercise, and self-leadership activity.

In order of can be done in many different ways.

You can come up with various variations as well.

The principle is to give different instructions where participants have to arrange themselves "in order of" (standing, sitting, or lying down).

A very enjoyable, simple, challenging, and insightful variation is: "Blindfolded, in order of shoe size".

I personally experienced my (lack of) leadership in this activity.

I literally stood still and did nothing.

Since then, I have become more aware in my life and ask myself, "What can I do in this situation?".

Imagine the impact this experiential exercise can have!

This activity promotes:
- Getting to know each other
- Team building
- Collaboration
- Self-leadership

Instructions for In order of:
Time: 20-30 minutes
Participants: 8 to 20
Indoor and Outdoor
Active

Materials Needed:
Blindfolds, or simply asking participants to close their eyes will work too. Purchasing a set of tea towels is also a quick option.

Objective:
Participants receive a group task that can only be completed together.

Instructions:
All participants stand apart, maintaining a distance from each other.

You provide the group with different instructions.

Here are a few suggestions:

Arrange yourselves in order of:
- First name
- Age (always hilarious)
- Height
- Place of residence
- Geographical order of residence (I usually don't provide clear explanations, leading to confusion. Participants tend to spread out, start shouting, and chaos ensues... until a leader emerges or not...)
- Etcetera, depending on the group's theme or the training/lesson

Variation:
The most enjoyable and impactful variation is:

First, everyone blindfolds themselves. After the instructions, no one is allowed to speak.

The task now is:
Arrange yourselves in a line, in order of shoe size, from smallest to largest.

As a trainer, you observe what is happening.

Personal leadership now comes to the fore.

You probably already guessed...

I didn't take action.

Ouch!

One person just starts laughing. Another person starts talking (breaking the rules). Yet another person secretly looks around (also against the rules). Someone insists on following the instructions precisely. Someone tries to put everyone else in their place.

At a certain point, I ask:
"If you think everyone is in the right place, raise your right hand."

And then I mention the number of hands I see raised.

Often, you will notice that after that comment, the number of raised hands either increases or decreases.

In short, it's a fantastic activity that brings out a lot of observable behaviors and provides participants with valuable insights both individually (self-leadership) and as a team (teambuilding).

Now, there's still the debriefing to be done...

Safety
Beforehand, check if the participants are comfortable with physical contact. If needed, discuss how they should touch each other.

Evaluation
What happened? (this asks for factual behavior)
How did you participate?
Did you play fair?
How did it affect you?
Where do you recognize yourself doing "this" (or your team doing this)?
What will you/we take away from this experience?

In summary, it's an excellent activity that reveals a lot of behaviors and provides participants with valuable insights both individually (self-leadership) and as a team (teambuilding).