Fun Team Building Games for Kids

If there's one thing kids love, it's playing games!

These fun team building games for kids will add lots of excitement to your youth basketball training, while building teamwork and improving fundamental basketball skills and basketball conditioning.

I guarantee your players will love them!

Some of the team building ideas on this site are based on tag games and other activities my elementary school P.E. students used to love.

I modified them to incorporate basketball skills. You can do the same.

If you have a game that you know kids enjoy, see if you can change it up to include dribbling, passing, or shooting.

Just use your imagination!

The games below work great for any age players, even kindergarten and elementary basketball players. If you start a game and feel your kids aren't having enough success, don't be afraid to modify any game as necessary to fit your specific players' needs and abilities.

FUN TEAM BUILDING GAMES FOR KIDS

Team Dribble Tag
Hot Shot Shooting
1-Minute Free-for-All

Check out our entire list of fun team building games!

Fun Team Building Games #1
Team Dribble Tag

Divide players into teams of 3-4 people, and give each team a different colored jersey. Every player needs a ball.

The object of the game is to keep control of your ball while knocking the ball of opposing team members out of bounds. Players spread out within the half-court area to begin.

On the whistle, everyone begins dribbling.

While keeping their own dribble alive, players try to knock the basketballs away from dribblers on opposing teams.

If your ball gets knocked away, you can chase it down, pick it up, and start dribbling again if you get it before it goes out of the half-court boundary lines.

If it goes out, you are out of the game.

You cannot pick up your dribble to knock someone else's ball away or to keep from getting your ball knocked away. If you do, you are out. If you see a loose ball, you can either help hit it out of bounds if it belongs to an opponent or get it back to a teammate if it's theirs.

As players are eliminated, decrease the size of the playing area. I usually start with half-court for anywhere between 10-20 players and then decrease it to inside the 3-point line, inside the key (including the jump circle at the top), inside the key below the free throw line, and I finish inside the free throw circle. The winning team is the one whose player still has a ball.

Fun Team Building Games #2
Hot Shot Shooting

Put 1 team at each basket. Line up 5 spots in an arc around each basket within the player's shooting range.

Each team has 1 ball, and all players line up behind the first spot.

Once a player makes a shot from the first spot, the entire team rotates to the 2nd spot, and the next person in line shoots from there.

Players shoot in order until someone makes it, and then the entire team moves to the 3rd spot to shoot.

Play continues until the team makes a total of 5 shots. (1 at each spot)

Variations:

• Increase the number of shooting spots or move them farther away from the basket.
• Once the team makes the shot at the last spot, make a second shot at #5 and come back in reverse, so a total of 10 shots are made.
  
• Have the team make 3 shots from each spot before rotating to the next spot.

Fun Team Building Games #3
1-Minute Free-for-All

Put 1 team at each basket. Every player has a ball. Teams have 1 minute to shoot from anywhere on their area of the court to see how many baskets their team can make combined.

All players shoot at the same time and chase down their own rebounds. Every time a player scores, he counts the new team total out loud. The winner is the team that makes the most baskets in a minute.

Your players will have a blast with these fun team building games and team buidling ideas as they learn how to work together to compete!

Getting players to pull together as a team isn't always easy. Here are some great teamwork quotes that every coach can use.