How to wake up your class?¶

Here are my favourite energizers – physical activities that get people from their chairs. They don’t fulfill any purpose other than waking up people.

Murmur¶

Let participants discuss a question, task, problem for 2 minutes among each other before a discourse in class.

This is a very versatile technique that activates your class in many situations.

YMCA¶

one person names a concept from the course and makes a gesture/move
the others repeat the gesture
the second person repeats the previous moves and adds one to it
repeat until you have a sequence of 7-8 moves

Scale¶

Create a scale in the room using cards with numbers (0/25/50/75/100) or words.

Ask a question (“how much do you know about programming?”, “how far away from here do you live?”)

Participants sort themselves along the scale.

You can ask multiple questions or “interview” a few participants to describe their position.

This works great a the beginning of the course or as a feedback method.

Binary count¶

Count to 15 using the fingers of one of your hands.

Knot¶

Four people hold a thread or rope in one hand. Create a knot in the middle without letting go of the thread.

Fastball¶

Pass a ball around so that it touches every hand once. Use a stopwatch to measure the time. Repeat a few times and optimize.

*a more serious ball activity to introduce Agile concepts is Boris Glogers “Ball point game” *

Microwave¶

A super quick energizer. The microwave has three levels:

hmmmm - Spread your arms in front of you, so they´re parallel to the ground and move your fingers like starting a wave and hum monotonously.
HMMMM - like level 1 and aditionally turn around once.
Bing! - Jump, raise your arm, point to the ceiling and make a noise like „bing!“

presented by Celestine Kleinesper at EuroPython 2017

Horserace¶

Tap your hands on your upper legs. Give commands like “go left”, “faster”, “jump” for about a minute.

Clapping¶

Pass a “clapping signal” around in a circle. Clapping twice changes the direction. Making a mistake means you leave the circle.

Ball sequence¶

Pass a ball in a given sequence arond in the room so that everybody has it once.

Then add more balls.

Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock¶

Do a best-of-three knockout tournament

Paper plane race¶

Variation: pairs of participants build the plane using one hand each

Keep balloons floating¶

mark a square area on the ground
give the group one balloon
ask them to keep it in the air for 5’
add more balloons

brought to me by my Sensei Till

Crowd control¶

Trainer claps once every 3 secs, invites other trainees to join until the whole room joins –> silence, attention

Energizing presenters¶

hand on stomach. breathe. rub your hands. arms up, swing your arms, get down, get up, turn around, whoo-heee.