Sonya,
Over the years, what I've found is that some small things can make a huge difference…  

- 20 minutes on the trampoline every few meetings is great fun for the kids.  

- Regular snack time halfway through the 3 hour practice let's the kids practice being a team without them realizing that this what they are doing (provided a coach is part of the discussion and keeps is gracious).

- We do a teamwork exercise each week.  They are fun and the kids look forward to them.  In fact, this past weekend they started to complain when they thought we wouldn't have time to do one.

- This year, we introduced team push-ups as a sort of punishment/reward.  Specifically, a few weeks ago the team was doing a non-verbal exercise where they needed to put themselves in birth order.  When they arranged themselves, I asked them how sure they were that they were in the correct order.  They were confident.  I asked if they were willing to wager 10 push-ups on it.  If they were in the correct order, the coaches would do the push-ups.  If not, they would do the push ups.  They weren't (thankfully) and did their push ups.  Since then, we've all done some push-ups.

John

-- 

John J. Barrett
Industrial Medium Software, Inc.
1616 Anderson Road
McLean, VA 22102

(c) 703-231-5094
(p) 703-286-0818
(f) 703-286-0888

http://www.industrialmedium.com



On Nov 7, 2012, at 9:33 AM, B Bergenstock wrote:

> We will periodically have instant challenge meetings (usually one early in the process and one late in the process). Some are silly, some are large scale building challenges, and at least some involve balloons :)  It's these meetings that can keep them going and serve to build great community and core value skills.
> 
> http://tvnc.texasdi.org/node/77
> I often give more time then the 5 minutes, especially for the building device challenges, because 5 minutes can zoom by.
> Regards, 
> Brandy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 3:19 PM, Sonya Shaver <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello all,
> I would love to hear some ideas you've done to keep things fun for your team.  Any fun field trips about robotics or technology in Virginia?  Any additional fun activities or challenges you've tried?  Thanks for sharing!
> 
> best,
> Sonya Shaver
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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