How to wake up your class?
Here are my favourite energizers – physical activities that get people from their chairs. They don’t fulfill any purpose other than waking up people.
Murmur
Let participants discuss a question, task, problem for 2 minutes among each other before a discourse in class.
This is a very versatile technique that activates your class in many situations.
YMCA
- one person names a concept from the course and makes a gesture/move
- the others repeat the gesture
- the second person repeats the previous moves and adds one to it
- repeat until you have a sequence of 7-8 moves
Scale
Create a scale in the room using cards with numbers (0/25/50/75/100) or words.
Ask a question (“how much do you know about programming?”, “how far away from here do you live?”)
Participants sort themselves along the scale.
You can ask multiple questions or “interview” a few participants to describe their position.
This works great a the beginning of the course or as a feedback method.
Binary count
Count to 15 using the fingers of one of your hands.
Knot
Four people hold a thread or rope in one hand. Create a knot in the middle without letting go of the thread.
Fastball
Pass a ball around so that it touches every hand once. Use a stopwatch to measure the time. Repeat a few times and optimize.
*a more serious ball activity to introduce Agile concepts is Boris Glogers “Ball point game” *
Microwave
A super quick energizer. The microwave has three levels:
- hmmmm - Spread your arms in front of you, so they´re parallel to the ground and move your fingers like starting a wave and hum monotonously.
- HMMMM - like level 1 and aditionally turn around once.
- Bing! - Jump, raise your arm, point to the ceiling and make a noise like „bing!“
presented by Celestine Kleinesper at EuroPython 2017
Horserace
Tap your hands on your upper legs. Give commands like “go left”, “faster”, “jump” for about a minute.
Clapping
Pass a “clapping signal” around in a circle. Clapping twice changes the direction. Making a mistake means you leave the circle.
Ball sequence
Pass a ball in a given sequence arond in the room so that everybody has it once.
Then add more balls.
Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock
Do a best-of-three knockout tournament
Paper plane race
Variation: pairs of participants build the plane using one hand each
Keep balloons floating
- mark a square area on the ground
- give the group one balloon
- ask them to keep it in the air for 5’
- add more balloons
brought to me by my Sensei Till
Crowd control
Trainer claps once every 3 secs, invites other trainees to join until the whole room joins –> silence, attention
Energizing presenters
hand on stomach. breathe. rub your hands. arms up, swing your arms, get down, get up, turn around, whoo-heee.