Cooperative games are practices that generate an environment of collectivity and help among participants. Its goals focus on solving tasks and challenges with the participation of everyone.
This type of game aims to establish relationships of trust and partnership in a relaxed atmosphere, strengthening the group and empathy between people.
What are cooperative games?
In its practice, cooperative games do not have eliminations, exclusions, winners and losers. In general, the way the task is carried out and the interaction between the participants becomes the central point.
Participants always understand each other as partners and never as adversaries. This encourages everyone to participate and respect differences.
Because there are no opponents, cooperative games avoid behaviors such as cheating, cheating or taking advantage of others to achieve their own success.
The challenge is to overcome fears, insecurities and the difficulty of acting and thinking collectively.
Cooperative games play an important didactic role and serve as a metaphor for life, where it is often necessary to join forces to achieve a certain goal.
10 types of cooperative games for Physical Education (and beyond)
There are countless possible examples. Any playful or symbolic way of fulfilling a collective goal can be understood as a collaborative game.
Therefore, we have separated some examples that can be reproduced or inspire new activities.
Nowadays, cooperative games have a great visibility and have become a trend in the field of Physical Education.
This is due to several studies that show the advantages of cooperative games over traditional competitive games.
1. Cooperative Sport
Main goal: Decentralize the perspective of competition in sport and develop empathic and supportive relationships.
Necessary material: the same ones used for common sports practice: balls, cones, space markings, courts, etc.
In this type of practice, any sport is taken as a basis (volleyball, basketball, football, dodgeball, etc.) and some rules are readjusted to favor cooperation:
- Rodizio - the point marker passes to the other team. Other criteria for this rotation between teams can be established (time or when the ball goes out, for example).
- All pass - the point is only validated if everyone on the team participates in the play.
2. sheet
Main goal: Exercising the collective contribution to the resolution of a task.
Specific objective: Control and shoot the ball to the basket.
Necessary material: Sheet (or other fabric), ball and basket.
In Lençolbol, team members hold the ends of a sheet and control a ball on top of that sheet.
The team must perform a task: basket the ball or take a certain course.
3. Infinite Volleyball
Main goal: Develop participation and collective success at the expense of personal success or a small group for the whole.
Specific objective: Keep the ball in play with the participation of all players and develop volleyball fundamentals (headline and touch).
Necessary material: Ball, volleyball court and timer.
Infinite volleyball is like a normal volleyball game. However, the objective is not to score points on the opposing team, but to keep the ball high by performing as many passes as possible.
For this, a pre-established time limit can be established, as a goal of the number of passes and/or passes per player. The same can be done with footvolley.
4. pen in the bottle
Main goal: Exercising everyone's collaboration to solve a common task.
Specific objective: Bring the pen to the neck of the bottle.
Necessary material: Roll of string, pen and a bottle pet.
The string should be divided into equal pieces of about two meters in length, one per participant.
The ends of the pieces must be joined and tied in the center. At this junction between the parts, a small piece of string (approximately 30 cm) attached to a pen must be tied.
The bottle must be placed on the ground and with the strings taut, the team must place the pen inside the bottle. The same can be done with students with their eyes closed or with their backs to the bottle. In this case, the instructions for the move must be given by one of the colleagues.
5. the trophy
Main goal: Exercise dexterity, synchrony and teamwork.
Specific objective: Guide the ball balanced on the wood along the determined path.
Necessary material: Ball and pieces of wood (or broom handles).
Each team member receives a piece of wood. As it is not possible to balance the ball on only one piece of wood, the team must organize itself so that the joining of the wood of all members forms a base to guide the ball.
The task makes the team have to plan their movements together to keep the ball in balance.
6. Blind drawing
Main goal: Exercising communication, giving and receiving directions and instructions.
Specific objective: Reproduce a drawing without knowing it and blindfolded, following only the partner's instructions.
Necessary material: Pen or pencil, paper and blindfolds.
For the activity, pairs must be formed. Each pair receives a sheet of paper, pen or pencil and a blindfold (you can ask participants to simply close their eyes).
One member of the pair must close or be blindfolded, the other receives a drawing, which must be reproduced by their blindfolded partner.
The designs vary in their degree of complexity according to the age of the participants. They can be brought and distributed by the teacher/facilitator or drawn on the board for the sighted participants.
It is up to the sighted member to provide guidelines for the reproduction of the drawing by the blindfolded companion. At the end, the pairs share the result with the class and the roles are reversed.
7. collective pen
Main goal: Exercise dexterity, synchrony between people and teamwork.
Specific objective: Draw or write with a pen with wires controlled by the team.
Necessary material: Pen or marker pen, masking tape (optional) and string, small ropes or knitted threads.
Each pen must be tied by several threads of about 30 cm, according to the number of components in the group.
Each member must hold and stretch their string in such a way as to keep the pen suspended in the center on a sheet of paper. To make it easier, the sheet can be taped to the table.
The teacher/facilitator should ask for a drawing or message to be written. The group must control the pen and draw on the sheet of paper.
At the end, the result is shared and the challenges for carrying out the task are discussed.
8. Crazy Magazine
Main goal: Exercise creativity and communication.
Specific objective: Make creative and funny headlines from found and rearranged newspaper words.
Necessary material: Newspapers and magazines, paper, scissors and glue.
The task starts with the formation of groups of 3 to 6 members, the material is distributed among the groups, it is proposed by the teacher/mediator the formation of new funny and creative headlines from words found in newspapers and magazines.
The activity is a kind of puzzle (puzzle) from the received material. It may be proposed to create drawings that illustrate the headlines.
At the end, the magazines created by the different groups is presented to everyone.
9. scavenger hunt
General objectives: Develop motor and psychic abilities and the perception of individual characteristics and their performance together.
Necessary material and specific objectives: Depends on the types of tasks to be performed. The methods of other cooperative games can be used.
The scavenger hunts are a way to establish cooperation and teamwork. It is up to the teachers or mediator to elaborate a series of tasks that must be carried out collectively.
It is important that there are a variety of requirements for the development of the task. That is, physical tasks favor those who have this kind of ability, but can disprove others.
The scavenger hunts can involve a series of isolated activities or even a pre-defined route, relying on the use of various cooperative practices.
10. Escape Room (escape room)
Main goal: Working collectively, managing conflicts, valuing particular skills and knowledge.
Specific objective: Solving problems and challenges that lead to common success ("escape the room").
Necessary material: Room or closed environment; material for thematic decoration: posters, banners, objects, etc.; padlocks, safes and the like.
O escape room is a game that has caught the attention of young people. It's a retelling of the traditional treasure hunt.
The game consists of an attempt to unravel a series of puzzles so that the team can escape from the room at a predetermined time.
The advantage of this type of activity is that, in addition to the easy engagement of young people and adults, it allows the use of one or more areas of knowledge.
The diversity of puzzles can make different skills of participants required.
It is up to the teacher or mediator to create an environment from which the participants must "escape". It can be important to create an initial story that contextualizes the team in that environment.
The various issues and challenges must be resolved in order for them to result in team success.
Interested? See too:
- Physical Education Activities
- 15 Popular Games That Teach and Kids Love
- 15 fun games and games
- 14 super dynamics for the first day of school
- Lesson plan (how to, model and examples)
