Age Group: PreK - 5th

Number of Students: 6 students or more; a large group may work better in teams

Duration: 10-15 minutes +

Overview

Students will challenge their perseverance skills as they have to guess their ‘secret action’ while only receiving applause as guidance

Materials

• Open space

Instructions

1.  Gather students together in an open space. It’s time to select the 1 “chosen player" for the first round. You can ask for volunteers or else choose the first players for yourself.
2.  Send the chosen player out of the room. Once they are out, have the group come up with an action they must perform when they come back into the room. Moderate this process to make sure an appropriate and safe action is chosen. (Example: jump up and down, sit in a chair, walk across the room, etc.)
3.  Bring the chosen player back into the room and instruct them to try to figure out and do the mystery action. Other group members should observe the chosen players and cheer by clapping or encouraging them when they get closer to doing the action (“hot"), and boo or slow down clapping when they get farther from doing the action (“cold"). No words should be spoken by the group about the mystery action and no gestures should be used to indicate what needs to be done.
4.  The game is over once the chosen player performs the mystery action. You may choose the next player by who was the most encouraging, who came up with the final action ideas, or any other criteria you see fit. Normally there is no winner or loser in this game; it’s just a fun activity to help groups bond. 
5. Check for questions.
6. Begin game.

Variations 

• Divide the group into two or more sets of people with their own chosen player and mystery action. Set a timer and let the teams compete to see whose chosen player will complete their action first. 
• You can also time each chosen player to see how long it takes them to complete their mystery action. The one with the shortest time is the winner.

Reflection Questions

• How did it feel when you were able to guess the action?
• At any point did you feel like giving up? What stopped you?
• Was it more fun to be the chosen one or a guesser? Why?

Age Group: PreK-2nd 

Number of Students: 2 or more students in groups, with 2-8 students in a group

Duration: 15-20 minutes +

Overview

Students will challenge their perseverance skills as they work to toss as many marshmallows in their partner’s cup as they can while increasing their distance away from each other.

Materials

• Open space

• 2 solo cups for each group

• A bag of marshmallows for each group

• A bowl or bag to store marshmallows

Instructions

1. Gather students in an open space.
2. Pre Game info/ discussion: Instructor: “Do you know what’s pretty fun? Eating marshmallows. Do you know what’s not pretty fun? Not being able to eat marshmallows until you perfect tossing them between cups. Perseverance really isn’t a fun topic to talk about, because it’s hard. It’s hard to persevere through hard times. It’s hard to press on when things are tough. There’s really nothing fun about it, but it’s incredibly important. In the dictionary, perseverance is defined as “steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” Steadfastness. Staying steady. Holding steadfast to something and sticking out the situations that are difficult, where success seems really far away.
   
   
3. Split the students into groups of 2-8 students per group, depending on how many materials you have.
   
   
4. Give each team two plastic cups, a bowl, and some marshmallows.
   
   
5. Explain the game.
   Instructor: “The teams will start from an arms-length apart, each holding a plastic cup. You must toss a marshmallow from one plastic cup to the other. Once you successfully transfer the marshmallow between cups, you must put it in your team’s bowl.
   
   “After that, one team member must take a step back before they toss the next marshmallow. Once they successfully toss the marshmallow from one cup to the next, they put it in the bowl.
   
   Here’s the tricky part; for every marshmallow that hits the ground, you must remove one from your bowl.”
   
   
6. This continues until the team is ten steps apart and has ten marshmallows in their bowl. If all the marshmallows have been removed by the time they get ten steps apart, they must continue tossing from this length until they get ten marshmallows in their bowl.
   
   
7. Once they have ten marshmallows, they must eat them all.
   
   
8. The first team to get ten marshmallows in their bowl and eat them all wins!
   
   
9. Questions?
   
   
10. Begin game

Reflection Questions:

• What were you feeling when you were having a hard time? What made you continue?
• What ended up working for you?
• Did the marshmallows help you persevere?
• What did you enjoy about this game

Age Group: 3rd-5th

Number of Students: 2 students or more (with a larger group, you may want to break into groups of no more than 6-8 students each) 

Duration: 10-15 minutes (or longer if they are struggling)

Overview

Students will challenge their perseverance skills as they try to unscramble a sentence in groups.

Materials

• Open space

• The sentence: “No one of us is as smart as all of us,” cut into single words on pieces of paper. (If more than 1 group, will need to prepare and cut out the phrase for each group or pair.)

Instructions

1. 1. Gather students in an open space and have them form groups of no more than 6-8 students in a group. If it is a smaller group, see if they can all work together.

   2. Hand out the cards with the words from the sentence above. 

   3. Explain the game. Instructor: “The challenge is to arrange the cards into a sentence that makes sense. The group should signal the instructor when they feel they have put the sentence together correctly.

   4. Questions?

   5. Begin game.

Variations

• Instead of groups: pair the students and blindfold one of the partners. Give the blindfolded student the cards. Once the students have the cards in their possession, they cannot talk. The challenge is to arrange the cards into a sentence that makes sense. The sighted partners will need to maneuver their blindfolded partners safely into the correct position in the sentence. 

• Time the groups to see who can complete the sentence faster.

Reflection Questions

• How many different combinations of words did you find?

• How did you feel when your group could not get the correct sentence?

• Did you try any strategies to help complete the sentence?

• Why is perseverance an important skill?

Age Group: PreK - 5th

Number of Students: 8 students + (Ideally an even number since students will be divided into teams) 

Duration: 20-25 minutes +

Overview

Students will challenge their perseverance skills by trying to capture the opponent team’s flag without getting tagged.

Materials

• Open space 

• A flag for each team

• Cones or markers to designate the playing field and the middle of the field 

• Markers to represent the ‘holding zone’ for each team on their side

• A space to hold each team’s flag

Instructions

1. Divide into two teams.

2. Demonstrate safe tagging: light touch, like a butterfly wings, on the back or shoulder. Unsafe tags are hard contact that might cause the person being tagged to fall. Show where the boundaries are located.

3. Each team tries to take the other team’s flag and return across the center line without being tagged.
4. When guarding the flag zone or the holding zone, a defender must be at least 2’ away from the zone boundaries.
5.  If a player is tagged while on their opponent’s side, they must go to the holding zone on their opponent’s side.
6.  If a player who has stolen the flag is tagged, the flag is returned to the flag zone, and the player goes to the zone.
7. A player can be freed from the holding zone when a teammate crosses the center line and tags the player; both players then receive a free walk back to their side.
8. A player can only free one teammate at a time.
9. If an opposing player can get both feet into the flag zone without being tagged, they can remain there safely (without getting tagged) before attempting to cross the center line.
10. Make sure that all students understand the rules. 
11. Begin game!

Variations

• Limit the number of players allowed in the circle at one time.
• Allow a player in the circle to throw the flag to a teammate. The flag must still be carried over the centerline, however.
• The players in the tagged zone can join hands and reach out of the zone to make it easier to be freed.
• Similarly, all players in the holding zone are freed when a player makes it across to rescue them.
• For extended games, allow players to hide their flags in plain sight in a designated area

Reflection Questions

• What challenges did you face and did you persevere?
• How did it feel if the other team captured your flag?
• What were you thinking when you were captured in the holding zone? How did it feel to get freed?

Age Group: PreK - 5th

Number of Students: 2 students + (Ideally an even number since students will be divided into teams.)

Duration: 20 minutes +

Overview

Students will challenge their perseverance skills by racing against the clock to turn their cups up or down.

Materials

• Open space 

• 20 solo cups per game (more cups needed for multiple simultaneous game play)

Instructions

1. Place 20 or more cups in the middle of the room. Place half of them upside down and the other half the right way up.

2. Divide the group into 2 teams and give each team a name (ie ups or downs) - the 'up' team needs to turn as many cups up the right way as possible, and the 'down' team needs to flip them upside down.

3. Have one person from each team play at a time. Give them 60 seconds (or another chosen time given by the instructor) to flip all their cups according to their team’s goal (up or down.)

4. When the allocated time limit is over, count all the cups; whichever team has the most turned their way wins and gets 1 point.

5. This will continue until all team members from each team have gone.

6. Whichever team has the most points at the end of the game wins.

7. Questions?

8. Begin game

 Variation: You can split the students into more teams and have multiple games going on at one time (will need more cups).

Reflection Questions

• What challenges did you face? How did you adjust when trying again?

• Which was more important? Speed or accuracy? Why?

• Did you get faster and more accurate with more time? If so, why?

Age Group: 3rd-5th

Number of Students: 6-12 students per group

Duration: 20-25 minutes +

Overview

Students will challenge their perseverance skills by solving a task together in a specific order.

Materials

• Open space 

• Poly spots or markers that are numbered 1-12. (You can use construction paper or paper plates with numbers taped to the floor.) With multiple groups, you’ll need multiple sets; for an extra challenge, number 1-20. 

• Rope or string, or something to create a small boundary

Instructions

1. Lay a long rope on the floor/ground to form a large circle. Collect and number as many spot markers as you have people in your group. Randomly distribute the numbered spot markers inside the circle.
2. Ask each person to stand on top of one of the spot markers.
3. When ready, instruct each individual to move to and touch every other spot in the ascending order of the numbers. For example, the person standing on spot #8 will move to 9, 10, 11 and 12 (presuming there are 12 people in the group,) before moving to 1, 2, 3 through to 8.
4. As soon as an individual has touched all of the spot-markers and returns to their own, they will exit the circle.
5. Challenge your group to perform this task as accurately and as fast as possible.
6. Furthermore, challenge your group to solve this problem without stepping outside of the (roped) circle or touching any other person in the process (touching elsewhere within the circle is permitted.)
7. Encourage your group to make as many attempts as possible within a specified time period, aiming to improve their performance with each attempt.
8. Allow ample time for planning and problem-solving.
9. Questions?
10. Begin game.

Reflection Questions

•  How did you think and work under pressure?
•  What inspired you to keep trying?
• Were you a leader or a follower?