Habit 6: Synergize

I have been waiting to teach Habit 6 to our fifth graders because team building activities are my favorite activities to do with groups of kids!  Habit 6 is all about the we, not the I.

Together Is Better:

I value other people’s strengths and learn from them. I get along well with others, even people who are different than me. I work well in groups. I seek out other people’s ideas to solve problems because I know that by teaming with others we can create better solutions than anyone of us can alone. I am humble.

To begin, we each did a personality assessment that I found available to download here.  Students rank themselves on the qualities they feel are most important to them across each row.  It is important to learn about your own strengths and weaknesses so you can function best in a group.  It is also important to learn about your group member's strengths and weaknesses so you can function best in a group.

After we all figured out which "fruit" best described our personality, I told them which fruit they would be paired up with for a group challenge.  They read through their partner's descriptions to think about ways that would improve their teamwork and communication skills.  Then I introduced the challenge...the LEANING TOWER OF FEETZA!

I found this free activity on a great website filled with team building activities, Playmeo.  I typed up a quick synopsis to explain the goal of the activity, and with such a simple task (or so we all had thought), I set them off to start right away!

Hilarity ensued, conflict ensued, problem solving ensued, chaos ensued!  We all had a really great time and an even better debrief session on the challenge, on synergizing and on how knowing more about ourselves can make such a different in our everyday interactions with others.