Life Skills & Leadership: Unit 4, Session 4: The Project Cycle | Page 48 of 91Instructional Sequence
I. Motivation ( 10 minutes)
Materials:
Ball of yarn or string
A. Sticky Web
Participants experience the interconnections within a community.- Welcome the participants and ask them to stand in a circle facing inward. Say:
“We’ve spent a lot of time learning about being a leader and being a member of a team. Today I’d
like to talk about how you can use what you know about working as a team to complete a project or
to do an activity that uses the ideas and talents of a group of people to accomplish it.”- Wrap the end of a ball of string or yarn loosely around your hand. Unwrap a couple arm-lengths of
string from the ball and toss it to someone across the circle. Say:
“When the ball of string comes to you, wrap the string loosely around your hand, then toss the ball
to another person.”- Coach participants to keep the sections of string between each person from sagging but not so
tight that someone’s hand might get hurt. Make sure everyone has received the ball of string at
least once. (For a small group of five or fewer, you can send the string around again in a different
sequence.) Say:
“Each of us is directly connected to two people (or four if the ball of string went around the group
twice) and indirectly to everyone else. Let’s see what happens in a few different conditions.”- Give the following instructions one at a time. Invite the participants to discuss the implications of
each change with the questions that follow the instructions.
“If your birthday is in November, gently tug on the string. If your birthday is in July or January, pull
gently on the string. (Choose different months if no one pulls the string.)What effect did you notice when one person pulled the string? (Possible answers: The string
got tighter. I couldn’t always tell who was pulling. Everyone felt some effect)
What did you notice when several people pulled the string? (Possible answers: The string got
even tighter. I felt pulled in several directions.)
If our circle represents a team, what might the string represent? (Possible answers:
Conversations among friends. Relationships between people. Interactions between members.
The work the team is doing. The project the group is doing.)
What would pulling on the string represent?” (Possible answers: People who make demands.
People who don’t communicate effectively. People who want things to go their way. People
who have unmet needs. The challenges of getting along together.)