Going on a Bear Hunt - 52 Weeks of Team Building

Get outside and go on a Bear Hunt with your Team!!!
This activity is so much fun and it gets you and your team physically "out of the box". This is a great energizer and can help improve their interpersonal skills and reliability of the team members. Give this a try on a Good Weather Day and you and your team will thoroughly enjoy!

​Use: Ice Breaker, Afternoon Energizer, Team communication, Team Reliability
Purpose: This is an outdoor exercise that can be used as an energizer or as a tool to improve team communications and influence teams to begin relying on each other rather than the leader for support and direction.
Materials:

• Version #1 - 12 print outs of the “bear”. The PDF is included in this document. A group of people between 2-50 people. Writing pad to document the location of the hidden clues, rewards such as gift cards, get out of jail free cards (return 10 min late from lunch or arrive 10 min late to work), chocolate etc…
• Version #2 - 12 print outs of the “bear”. The PDF is included in this document. A group of people between 2-50 people. Print out of the Clues for each team, rewards such as gift cards, get out of jail free cards (return 10 min late from lunch or arrive 10 min late to work), chocolate etc…

Setup:
Version #1

• Print and cut out the 12 bears. Number the bears 1-12
• Find a location like a park or town center for the event
• The day of….Hide the 12 bears around the chosen location and make a note of where each bear is hidden.

Activity:

• Remind the team to bring their phones
• When the team arrives separate the group into teams of 2-3 people. Tell them they are going on a Bear Hunt. Show them a sample of one of the Bear Cards and then instruct them to find each of the 12 cards that you have hidden, When they find a card, they take a picture of the card and move to the next one.
• Give them 30-35 minutes to complete the task
• You may give them 2-3 lifelines, which they can use to text you or the other teams to get help finding one of the bears. I recommend having the teams reach out to another team before they attempt to use a lifeline on you. It is an honors system
• At the end of the 35 minutes all teams need to be back at the starting line. Each team that successfully completes the challenge will win a prize of your choosing.

Setup:
Version #2

• Print and cut out the 12 bears. Each team gets 2 bears
• Find a location like a park or town center for the event
• The day before or the da of find 12 spots where you want the bear card photographed. Make a note of where each bear is hidden and turn those notes into clues. Prepare a one-page document with all 12 clues. Print enough, one for each team.

Activity:

• Remind the team to bring their phones
• When the team arrives separate the group into teams of 2-3 people. Tell them they are going on a Bear Hunt. Give each team 2 bear cards and instruct them to write a team name on each card.
• Tell the teams their objective is to find the correct location using the clue sheet provided and photograph their “Bear” in that location.
• Pass out the clues – always do this after the instruction to keep everyone’s attention
• Give them 30-35 minutes to complete the task
• You may give them 2-3 lifelines, which they can use to text you or the other teams to get help finding one of the locations. I recommend having the teams reach out to another team before they attempt to use a lifeline on you. It is an honors system
• At the end of the 35 minutes all teams need to be back at the starting line. Each team that successfully completes the challenge will win a prize of your choosing.

 
Conclusion
This quick and fun exercise will be the ultimate refresher on a good day. There is no need to officially debrief the group. But make note of any observations you have about how well they worked together when they needed a lifeline. Ask a few questions to guage how much interaction the teams had with each other. Praise when needed and offer positive redirection or ask for suggestions from the team for how they could improve the next time they play.

• Ask the teams if the reached out to each other before reaching out to you?
• Ask them if they found the other team’s advice helpful?
• Were any of the teams proud of the fact that they did not contact you?

 
 

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