This activity proposes three cooperative games in which students are intended to value the relevance of the cooperation and solidarity of people to move forward. These three games may be used for any age groups, the only variation is the difficulty decided by the teacher according to the class.

As the objective is the same in these three games, they can play all of them in a row (or just one or two depending on the time they have), then they may reflect all together on what they think about it, how they felt, which conclusions were drawn from them, and cooperation and solidarity.

Spider web

Teachers make a spider web with a ball of yarn, hooking and crossing it at different heights and various sizes of holes. Then you explain the students that they must cross over to the other side without touching it, moving it or passing through the same place the other students did (a sign can be put up so they know the route that was previously used).

There will be no further explanations and they will have freedom to play so they can do it alone or if it so happens, they will help each other. When the students have gone through the spider web, they are asked to do it again following the same rules (no touching, moving our passing through the same place other students did) but this time collaborating with each other to achieve it.

You can further complicate the activity by telling them not to talk, and for instance, just use hand gestures or by giving them a limited amount of time to do so.

When all the group members make it to the other side of the spider web, analyze how the activity was carried out. How they felt the first and second time, cooperation mechanisms they created, if they thought they would succeed, etc.

Finally, reflect with the students on how it is easier to achieve goals when they work together and cooperate, they can achieve some objectives individually but as a group with solidarity they can go further.

Turn the sheet

The teacher puts a sheet or large cloth on the floor and asks the students (divided into groups if they are too many) to get on top of it occupying half of it.

Then, when they are positioned, they are asked to turn the sheet over without getting off or stepping on the floor at any time.

Once they achieve this, they will have a debate to identify the strategies the group members carried out, how they turned the sheet over, if they needed to change the initial plan, and how they succeeded by collaborating all together because a single person could not do it on his or her own.

Cooperative musical chairs

 We will need a chair to be placed in a circle for each participant and a stereo. The activity is a version of the classic musical chairs game. The music plays and they all have to sit down once it stops. In the next round, a chair is removed, but nobody is eliminated, and they do the same thing as in the first round. Nobody can remain standing up. But since there are not enough chairs, there will be always someone standing and every time there will be more people in that situation so they may share the chairs as much as they can so nobody remains standing when the music stops.

They all have to make it work by helping each other so that nobody falls or is left standing. Then we will reflect with them on the importance of cooperation and not to discriminate against anyone.

This activity is proposed in the framework of the Solidarity Campaign 2021-2022: