Making rectangles
A task which depends on members of the group noticing the needs of others and responding.
Problem
This is one of a series of problems designed to develop learners' team working skills. Other tasks in the series can be found by going to this article.
What are you aiming to do?
For the task:
As a team:
- Responding to the needs of others
- Helping others to do things for themselves.
Getting started
Tackling the Problem
How to play
Players pass pieces to other team members in order to help one another complete their rectangle.
Rules
- No one can talk or give non-verbal signals to other members of the team.
- Each member of the team starts with four pieces in front of them.
- The pieces in front of each person should be visible to everyone.
- Team members can only give pieces; they cannot take pieces from someone else.
- Each team member must have at least two pieces in front of them at all times.
Use an observer to check that the team obeys the rules and offer one of the hint cards if, after a period of five minutes, the team is not making any progress.
Getting Started
Student Solutions
The children at Agincourt Road Public School in Canada sent in these two solutions:
Their teacher said:
They solved it with everyone having the identical rectangle with 4 pieces each. And one team reached a solution where 2 people had 4 pieces, 1 person had 3, and another had 5.
Thank you for sharing these solutions with us! It looks like you've worked hard in your teams to make all these rectangles the same.
I wonder if there are any other possible solutions? Please email us if you have any thoughts about this.
Teachers' Resources
Making Rectangles
This is one of a series of problems designed to develop learners' team working skills. Other tasks in the series can be found by going to this article.
What are you aiming to do?
For the task:
As a team:
- Responding to the needs of others
- Helping others to do things for themselves.
Getting started
Tackling the Problem
How to play
Players pass pieces to other team members in order to help one another complete their rectangle.
Rules
- No one can talk or give non-verbal signals to other members of the team.
- Each member of the team starts with four pieces in front of them.
- The pieces in front of each person should be visible to everyone.
- Team members can only give pieces; they cannot take pieces from someone else.
- Each team member must have at least two pieces in front of them at all times.
Use an observer to check that the team obeys the rules and offer one of the hint cards if, after a period of five minutes, the team is not making any progress.
Why do this problem?
This team-building task is designed to develop learners' team-working skills. If you wish to learn more about these skills and find other team-builder tasks look at this article.
This task depends upon members of the group noticing the needs of others and responding. It requires learners to:
- respond to the needs of others
- consider the needs of the whole group
- help others to do things for themselves.
Possible approach
Share the purposes of the activity and the rules with the group.
If you have more than four people in a group then use an observer to ensure the team obeys the rules and to place a hint card in the middle if one is needed.
Key questions
- Can you give any examples of when someone noticed what you needed and tried to help?
Possible extension
Other skill-building tasks can be found by going to this article.
Possible support
Other skill-building tasks can be found by going to this article.