Cross the River Game 

During the game, members are required to safely move across a Cross the River. Everybody who is on the team, is not allowed to touch the water or river and must utilize platforms in order to cross the river safely.

Required Resources:

• Either a small piece of wood, tire, milk crate, carpet square or rubber baseball base per person or even a piece of paper
• To mark off the activity area, use 2 pieces of rope (or 4 cones)
• Blindfolds (optional)

Space Required: Medium. Indoors or outdoors.

Group Size: 8 to 12 ideally, but can be done with 6 to 15 participants. For larger groups split them into teams and get them to race against each other.

Total Time: 25-30 minutes

• 5 minutes to brief and setup
• 15-20 minutes to achieve outcome
• 5 minutes to review and debrief

Running the Cross the River Activity

Create the Cross the River by marking two river banks with the rope. Make the Cross the River wide enough to be a challenge for the group to get from one side to the other (aim for 5 – 8 meters). Distribute the platforms – one per person.

Introduce the resources to the team/s and explain that the objective of the activity is to get all team members safely across the Cross the River.

Give them a total of fifteen to twenty minutes to complete the challenge. If you have a larger group and opt for two teams instead of one, then the team that crosses the river the quickest wins the challenge.

Rules of Crossing the River Game

• Players are not allowed to touch the imaginary rive, which is the floor or grass and they must use the platforms (piece of wood etc.) provided. Platforms can include tires or anything else available.
• All players must be on the banks (demarcated roped area) before anyone can start to move to safety on the other side.
• When crossing the River on the platforms and somebody falls off, the team must then go back and start the challenge over again.
• The platforms must remain in contact with each person all the time, otherwise everyone will be swept away. During the game, there is a chosen leader, this leader must ensure everybody is following the rules. If the rule is broken, they are then instructed to remove platforms.
• All participants cannot step in-between platforms and are not permitted to jump over the platforms.

Safety Precautions 

• Keep your eyes open, as players could easily slip or fall off the platforms. This is definitely a safety issue and underlines the difference between team work and individual effort.

Suggested Learning Outcomes

• The activity highlights the necessity for team work
• Communication plays a major role for the success of the team
• Helps to improve leadership qualities
• Problem solving skills are required

Guidance and Notes for Facilitators 

During the activity, some may find the task a bit too easy, one way to remedy this, is to take away a few of the platforms. Another way to make it more challenging, would be to blindfold participants. This will increase the need for team work and listening skills. To make the challenge even more interesting, introduce a rule whereby all players must always remain in contact with each other. In other words, team members must connect with each other via their hands or feet etc.

Come up with a mission for teams, their mission could be to retrieve an item on the other side and then return it safely back again. Have them carry the item back again and if they drop the it, then the team must begin over with the mission from the start.

Change the idea up a bit, you don’t always have to have a Cross the River. Instead, you can imagine a volcano of sorts, if they or their objects falls into the river, they will be swept away.

Debriefing and Review of Cross the River Game

Here are some questions to ask, this will help the group process their experience of Cross the River:

• Was there any planning involved before you began the activity?
• What strategy did you come up with?
• Was everybody involved with the planning?
• Did the plan work and what delayed your steps forward?
• Were there problems during the activity?
• Was there a definite leader chosen amongst you?
• Was there any leadership shown during the activity?
• What part did each member of the team play? And did everyone agree with their particular role?
• Did players communicate clearly during the activity?
• Did you gain anything from participating in the activity?

View other Group Team Building Activities.