I am looking for quotes or team building excersises to motivate and bring my teams together. I once had a coach who gave out packets that talked about what it takes to be a strong team, meshing well together and things like that. I told the girls the other day "There is no "I" in Team." And one girls said Yeah, but there is a "Me" Any ideas?

One thing I do with mine is insist that everyone comes at least 15 before class every single week. I tell them it is so they can warm up and I can chat with them if I need to and so the class can start on time. But the real reason is that it throws them togther with nothing to do for 15 minutes every week before class. They build better relationships, they chat and start group games and it really builds the team atmosphere.

Some team building games I play in class include a game where everyone lines out with a partner and I set them a task to find something out about their partner "ie what they want for their birthday". It gets them chatting and then they rotate around and find something different out about the next person.

In the past I've sat girls in a circle and placed a medium size ball of yarn in the middle of them. One dancer takes the yarn, then looks at another member and say something nice about that person. Holding onto the end of the yarn, that dancer then tosses the yarn to the person they made the nice comments about.

They go entirely around the circle, and you end with a web in the middle. Each girl/guy is still holding onto their section of the yarn ball. Explain why you need each other in the web. It's not just for one spider - you need everyone.

I still have the bag and the yarn from when I started this 8 years ago. I can't remember who taught it to me. Too many years gone bye.

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10% will like you -- These are important people
80% you can influence - These are important people
10% will not like you -- Don't let these discourage you
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YOu might want to check out the teachers forum for some uplifting motivational tools as well.

What age group are you working with?

I did one team builder with a class the other day. We stood in a circle holding hands. I put the hula hoop around my wrist and the girls had to get it all the way around the circle without letting go of hands. Its very easy, so if they're older, you can add a second hoop that must go the opposite way. At some point the hoops must cross. Normally during this, the students will speak up and encourage everyone to go faster or offer help to get it around. After the hoop is around, sit down and talk about what happened. Point out how they encouraged one another, which is something they need to do in practice, performances, etc. Pick out the other positive things they did as well. Communication, teamwork, encouragement, are the big ones that I usually see. Or if you don't see it, point it out and how it could have gone faster had they done that. Then let them try again.

Another game to improve communication, is to have them line up in abc order by first name, or last name, or in order by birthdate, WITHOUT talking. It is fun to see the alternative ways of communication. Try to pick one that they don't already know about each other so that they actually have to attempt to comminicate.

How do you end practice? One of the most effective ways I have seen done is to make the students form two lines, then go down the line and give each other a high 5 and say good job! It's pretty much what you see the highschool football players do at the end of games (or at least they used to - I haven't been to a game in a while).