How To Play The ‘Count To Ten’ Team-Building Game

by TeachThought Staff

We’ve looked at icebreakers for kids–elementary school students, for example.

How about another of an easy to use, fun, and fairly quick/zero-prep team-building game? One that can be used with a wide range of ages from elementary to adult? If so, ‘Count To Ten’ might just fit the bill.

How To Win At ‘Count To Ten’

Basically, the last player standing wins.

How? The idea for the students is to count strategically to keep from saying ‘ten.’ The best part of this activity is that it can give some students who may not be the ‘best’ at anything all day long a chance to win. (If less than 90% of your students smile the whole time, you’re doing it wrong.)

See also 10 Smart Team-Building Games and 10 Team-Building Games For A Friendlier Classroom

How To Play The ‘Count To Ten’ Team-Building Game

1. For Count To Ten, all students stand in a circle.

2. The first student who begins says ‘one,’ or ‘one, two.’

3. The next student picks up numerically where that student left off and can say a maximum number of two numbers. For example, if the first student said ‘one,’ the second student can either say ‘two’ or ‘two, three.’

4. The movement continues clockwise until a student is forced to say ‘ten,’ and has to sit, and the game starts back over at ‘one’ for the next student.

A Few Notes

Spread the students out strategically if necessary–if, for some example, one small group begins to figure out the rules and become too ‘aggressive’ with other students.

Note that there can be no pausing or silent counting—any pauses or indications the student is counting/calculating force them to sit. Timing is everything.

Also, ‘pouting’ or talking during counting may be an issue for you, depending on age and context. If so, explain to students that pouting (or talking that disrupts the game) while others are playing results in elimination from future rounds.

How To Play The ‘Count To Ten’ Team-Building Game