Facilitators-Handbook-For-Permaculture

STARTING A WORKSHOP: Opening Address & Introductions 45

Forming work groups - Creative method 2: Animal scramble

This is an effective group formation game that is fun and particularly relevant for

agricultural programs. This is a fairly quick exercise – it takes about 10 minutes.

1. Work out how many groups you want to form.


2. Create small ‘animal cards’ - as many types of animals as work groups needed.
   For example, if you have 30 participants and need 5 groups, make 6 cards for
   each type of animal: Rooster, Cow, Goat, Horse, Cat, and Dog. Try to choose
   animals that everyone knows.


3. Place the animal cards in a bag, basket, or box.


4. Ask each participant to take one animal card, but tell them that they are not
   allowed to read the card yet.


5. Ask each participant to read the word written on the card but to keep the word a
   secret.


6. Now the facilitator instructs the participants to find the rest of their friends – but
   there is no talking allowed. Instead they have to make the sound of the animal
   on their card. As soon as two participants find one another they should stick
   together and continue calling out until they find all of their animal friends.

Forming work groups - Creative method 3: Height sorting

• Work out how many groups you want to form.


• Ask the participants to organize and line up by their height.
  
  
  • The tallest and the shortest person joins group 1.
  
  
  • The next tallest and next shortest person joins group 2.
  
  
  • The next tallest and next shortest person joins group 3, etc.
  
  
  
  

Variation on this method:

• Line up in order by length of arm’s reach.


• Line up alphabetically by first name.


• Line up in order of date of birth from January to December.


• Line up in order by number of brothers and sisters you have.


• Line up in order by age.


• Line up in order by number of animals you own.

Forming work groups - Creative method 4: Numbers count off

The quickest way to form work groups is to have the participants count off numbers and

then join with others who have the same number.

For example, if there are 20 participants and you want to form them into 4 groups of 5

people each, then have the participants count off “1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4” in turn, and then

have all the people who called out the number 1 to form group 1, and those who called

out number 2, 3, and 4 to form groups 2, 3 and 4.