Gloves On is a great activity to bring groups together and have fun in a past-paced, personally challenging game where everyone can get involved. Team building happens in the debrief, where participants are given the opportunity to connect with each other by identifying commonalities and shared experiences!
Time Needed: 10 minutes
Group Size: Any
Materials: One pair of oven mitts, die, wrapped candy
Directions: Place the pair of oven mitts and a large pile of individually wrapped candy in the middle of the circle. Show the die and explain each person will roll the die. If they get anything other than a 6, they pass it to the player next to them. If they roll a 6, they must slide into the middle of the circle, put on both oven mitts (their “gloves”) and start unwrapping candy. They keep unwrapping until someone else in the circle rolls a 6, then that person slides into the circle, takes the oven mitts and starts unwrapping. One facilitator should count during the game to see which player unwrapped the most candy. Continue going around until everyone has completed a predetermined amount of turns or until all of the candy is unwrapped. Throw the unwrapped candy away after the game. If there are enough left over, offer wrapped pieces to the group to enjoy during the debrief.
Debrief Questions:
- How did it feel when you were rolling the dice? (Ex: Anxious, excited, hoping you would get a 6, hoping you wouldn’t)
- How did it feel trying to unwrap the candies with the mitts on? (Ex: Awkward, unfair, clumsy, silly)
- Can you think of a time or situation in your life (that you are comfortable sharing) that felt similar? Maybe something at home, at school, with friends?
- How did you handle it?
- What can you learn from it? (Ex: Others may feel the same way. Just because we feel like we are in the spotlight [the middle] others are not as focused on us as we may think. They are too busy with what’s happening right in front of them [rolling the die]).