Spatial Requirements: Classroom with moderate space required
Activity Type: Movement/group
Grades: K-12
Group Size: 10 or more
Time: 5-10 minutes

Introduction:  Excluding others can make it difficult for them to climb out of the pot and find positive friends. You may have said as a child, “Tick Tock, the game/group is locked.” This was a childish way of not including others into a group or game. This activity helps students look at this issue from the perspective of the person who is outside looking in. It will help students empathize with those around them who may feel left out.

Materials:

• None
  
  

Activity: 

For this activity, find a space large enough for students to move about freely.  Gather the entire class into a circle. Call out a number, and have the students quickly form into groups that add up to that number. When they have a group formed, they are to link arms to show they are a complete group. Allow the students five to ten seconds to form a group, then call out “Freeze!” At this point, everyone must stop moving, regardless of whether or not they have formed a group.  Call out another number. Students must form a new group with different people adding up to the new number. Once again, give five to ten seconds for students to form groups before yelling, “Freeze!” 

For example, if you have 24 people, try to make sure you don’t call out multiples of 24 (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12).  Rather, you would make groups of 5, 7, 9, and so forth. Make sure that the group size you call out will force someone to be excluded.

Before officially beginning, practice a couple of times to see how fast students can form groups. During the practice portion, no one will be penalized for not finding a group quickly enough.  After the practice rounds, however, explain that anyone who is not in a group when you yell, “Freeze!” is out of the game, and must go to the side and sit down. Now shorten the time to three to five seconds.  The game continues until you have three people left, at which point you will call out the number two. Someone will, of course, be left out, and the remaining two are the winners.

Processing the Experience:

• What was difficult about this activity?
• How did you feel when you were not able to join a group and were out of the game?
• How easy was it to keep finding a new group to join every time a new number was called?
• What is a clique? What can this activity teach us about cliques? In what ways are cliques good? In what ways are they bad?
• If you were stuck in the pot, how would being excluded by others make it difficult for you to climb out of the pot?
• What are the benefits of including others in our positive activities?