Play is a natural and fun way to develop team spirit and skills. So, it’s a great idea to have a good cache of school camp games up your sleeve when your aim is to build students’ as a team. To supplement the large selection of Coffs Coast Adventure Centre’s team building activities, here are five of our favourite school camp games.

Nature’s orchestra

This game challenges students to think outside the box and work together to discover the beauty of nature through sound.

● Split students into pairs and give them a time limit and defined area.
● Each pair has to create an instrument using natural materials (reinforce ground rules re respecting the environment).
● Some suggestions to create sound include, rubbing, blowing, banging, sliding, clicking.
● Regroup and have each pair demonstrate their instrument.
● Select a conductor who then chooses a familiar song or tune for the ‘orchestra’ to play.
● Swap around the conductor and take requests for songs.

Loud and proud

Music works well as an ice-breaker so here’s another idea that will have your students buzzing.

●Form groups of 3-4.
● Call out a random word e.g. rain, night, world, dream, moon, Christmas.
● Give groups around 30 secs to come up with a song (PG rated) that contains the key word.
● When the time is up, select random groups to perform part of their song.
● If you want to score, give bonus points for great performances and originality.

Human machines

Involving everyone in school camp games is an important part of team building. This game ensures maximum participation and a lot of laughs.

● Groups of 5-6 (or even larger) work well for this game.
● The objective is for each group to work together to create a machine that uses every team member. It could be a car, submarine, cuckoo clock, steamroller – teams are only limited by their imaginations.
● Give the students a time limit and encourage the inclusion of sounds and mechanical movements.
● After each group has presented their invention, encourage the students to join forces and develop a series of machines linked together by a common theme.

Game changer

This will test your students’ observation skills.

● Students will need to be in two even teams of around 10 -12 students (adapt the number of teams to suit your group).
● Team 1 faces team 2. Give Team 2 three minutes to study the appearance of Team 1.
● Once the time is up, Team 2 leaves the area while Team 1 changes one thing about each team member.
● Changes must be noticeable e.g. removing a shoe etc (make sure you hide objects that are removed).
● Team 2 then comes back and races against time to list the changes.
● Teams swap roles and Team 1 tries to beat the time.

Hit and run

A twist on an old faithful.

● Form two even teams (any number works)
● One team bats first while the other fields.
● The first batter stands in the middle of a circle formed by their team and uses a tennis racquet (or similar) to hit a ball as far as they can into the playing area.
● The batter then has to go around the circle naming each person in their team (to make it harder you could include surnames).
● Each time they complete the names around the circle counts as a run.
● Meanwhile, the fielding team retrieve the ball, form a line and pass the ball through the legs of the person behind. When the ball gets to the end of the line the person yells for the runs to stop being counted.
● The game continues until everyone has had a turn to bat.
● Tip – mix the circle up so the names aren’t in the same order.

You can also check out more school camp games in our previous blog posts:
Fostering leadership skills on school camp
Make rainy days shine
Five Top Tips to Create a Culturally Enriching School Camp Experience

Shannon, our Camp Concierge would also love to help you incorporate school camp games into your camp program. Give her a call today.