29 activities
Checked October 2026

Fall Team Building Activities

One autumn activity for a work team, with numbered steps and a debrief question.

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A Time I Was New, Told Around a Lantern1. Sit in a circle around a battery lantern, with the room lights low or outside at dusk.2. The lantern goes to one person, who tells in a minute about a time they were new at something and what helped.3. The lantern passes to whoever wants it next. Anyone may pass it straight on.4. When it has been around, each person names one thing from the stories that this team could do for its next new member.Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 to 12. Time: 12 min. Needs: a battery lantern or a flashlight. Debrief: Which of those things could start this week?

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Energizers 7

A Walking V, Everyone Leads Once 1. The group forms a V on the grass with one person at the point and an arm's length between people. 2. The V walks toward a far marker. Every ten steps the leader calls "swap". 3. On "swap" the person at the point drops to the back of one arm and the next person steps up to the point, while the V keeps walking. 4. The aim is to arrive with the V still a V and with everyone having led. Where: outdoors. Group: 5 to 30. Time: 6 min. Needs: nothing (a far marker, such as a tree). Debrief: What did the people at the back do that kept the shape together?
Five Hands, One Paper Leaf 1. Everyone gets a sheet of paper and makes one fold or one tear toward a leaf shape. 2. On the leader's word, each sheet moves one place to the left, and its new holder adds one fold or tear. 3. Nobody speaks, and nobody undoes an earlier fold. 4. After five turns, each person opens the leaf in their hands and the group lays them all out. Where: indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 6 min. Needs: a sheet of paper for each person. Debrief: At which turn did you see what the person before you was going for?
The Gourd Rolls Crooked 1. Mark a target line six paces from a start line. Each team of three or four gets one bumpy gourd. 2. One person rolls it toward the target. Before the next roll, the roller tells the next person what the gourd did. 3. Every person rolls twice. 4. The team keeps its best roll: the one that stopped nearest the target line. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 to 24. Time: 8 min. Needs: a small gourd for each team, tape or a rope laid flat for the lines. Debrief: What was the most useful thing a roller told the next person?

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Energizers, continued

Greenest to Brownest, One Leaf Each 1. Everyone picks up one fallen leaf and brings it back. 2. Without talking, the group lays the leaves in one line on the ground, greenest at one end and brownest at the other. 3. Anyone may move any leaf, one leaf at a time. 4. When nobody has moved a leaf for ten seconds, the line is done. Lay it again from smallest to largest. Where: outdoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 6 min. Needs: nothing (fallen leaves on the ground). Debrief: Which two leaves were moved the most, and what was the disagreement about?
Leaf Pile on a Sheet, There and Back 1. Teams of four spread an old bedsheet on the grass and heap leaves in the middle. 2. Each person takes a corner in both hands, and the team walks the pile around a marker and back. 3. Leaves that fall off stay where they fall. 4. Teams count the leaves they lost, talk for one minute, and walk it again to lose fewer. Where: outdoors. Group: 4 or more. Time: 8 min. Needs: an old bedsheet for each team of four, a marker to walk around. Debrief: What did the team change between the first walk and the second?
One Apple, a New Rule Every Lap 1. Stand in a circle. One apple is handed from person to person until it is back where it started. 2. After each lap, the next person in the circle adds one rule that stays for the rest of the game: say the receiver's name, use the other hand, look at the giver first. 3. A broken rule sends the apple back to the start of that lap. 4. Stop at five rules and finish with one clean lap. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 to 20. Time: 6 min. Needs: one apple. Debrief: Which rule did the group keep forgetting, and who noticed first?
Whose Soup Was That? 1. Go around the circle. Each person names the soup or stew they would bring to a fall lunch, and no soup may be said twice. 2. Go around again: this time each person names the soup of the person on their left. 3. Then the leader points at anyone, and the whole group says that person's soup together. 4. Finish when the group gets everyone right without a pause. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 to 20. Time: 5 min. Needs: nothing. Debrief: How did you remember the ones that were not next to you?

Communication 7

A Yes-or-No Key for Six Leaves 1. Each team of three or four lays out six different leaves and labels them A to F on slips of paper. 2. The team writes a key of yes-or-no questions that leads to any one of the six, such as "Is the edge smooth?". 3. Teams change tables. The visiting team is handed one leaf with its label hidden and follows the key to a letter. 4. The home team says whether the key landed on the right leaf, and rewrites the question that failed. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 6 or more. Time: 15 min. Needs: six different leaves, paper slips and a pen for each team. Debrief: Which question read clearly to you and was read another way by the other team?
Chili Cook-Off, One Scorecard per Table 1. Volunteers bring a pot each. The leader gives every pot a number and a card that lists what is in it, and keeps the cooks' names. 2. Tasters sit at tables of three to five and taste every pot together. 3. Each table has to agree on one first, second and third place and hand in a single card. 4. The leader counts the tables' cards and names the cooks. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 6 or more. Time: 30 min. Needs: pots of chili from volunteers, a number and an ingredient card for each pot, bowls, spoons, one scorecard for each table. Debrief: How did your table settle a pot that split you?
Describe Your Leaf, Then Find It in the Pile 1. Each person picks one fallen leaf and studies it for a minute. 2. Each describes their leaf in words to the person on their left, holding it out of sight. 3. All the leaves go into one pile, and the leader stirs it. 4. Each person picks out the leaf that was described to them, and its owner says whether it is the right one. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 8 min. Needs: a fallen leaf for each person (indoors, a bag of leaves brought in). Debrief: Which detail found the leaf, and which details were no help?
Draw the Gourd You Cannot See 1. In pairs or trios, set chairs back to back. One person holds a bumpy gourd, and the others hold a pen and paper. 2. The holder describes the gourd: its shape, its bumps, its stripes, where the stem sits. The drawers may ask questions. 3. After three minutes, set the drawings beside the gourd. 4. Change holders and take a different gourd. This time, agree first on what to describe in what order. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 10 min. Needs: two gourds, paper and pens for each pair or trio. Debrief: What did agreeing on an order change in the second drawing?
One Marker, One Pumpkin, a Line Each 1. Each team of three to five sits around one pumpkin with one marker. 2. In silence, each person in turn draws a single line or shape on the pumpkin and passes the marker on. 3. Go around four times. Nobody says what the pattern is meant to be. 4. Then each person says what they thought the team was drawing, and the team gives the pumpkin a title. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 8 min. Needs: a pumpkin and a marker for each team. Debrief: When did you give up your own idea and follow someone else's line?
Read Out the Sweater Pattern 1. The reader colors a pattern into a grid of eight squares by eight on graph paper, in two colors, and keeps it hidden. 2. The reader reads it out row by row. The knitters, each with an empty grid, color what they hear. 3. Knitters may say "again" and may not ask anything else. 4. Hold all the grids up together and find the first row where they differ. Then try a new pattern with a new reader. Where: indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 10 min. Needs: graph paper and pens in two colors for each person. Debrief: What did the second reader say that the first one had not?
Two Minutes to Plan, Then Bag the Leaves in Silence 1. Mark a patch of lawn with four sticks and give each crew of three to five a paper yard bag. 2. The crew has two minutes to plan out loud: who gathers, who holds the bag, who carries, and how to signal. 3. On "go" nobody speaks until the patch is clear and the bag stands by the marker. 4. Give the crew one minute to talk, then clear a second patch in silence. Where: outdoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 12 min. Needs: paper yard bags, work gloves, four sticks to mark each patch. Debrief: What did the plan leave out that you had to settle without words?

Problem solving 8

A Scarecrow That Stands by Itself 1. Each team of three to five gets a box of old clothes, newspaper, string and one broom. 2. The team builds a scarecrow that stands with nobody touching it. String goes around the scarecrow only. 3. At the leader's call everyone steps back, and the scarecrow has to stand for one minute. 4. A team whose scarecrow falls has three minutes to fix it and try once more. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 20 min. Needs: old clothes, newspaper, string and a broom for each team. Debrief: What was holding it up in the end, and whose idea was that?
Cardboard Chute From Table to Crate 1. Put a crate on the floor two paces from a table. Each team of three or four gets cardboard, tape and one apple. 2. The team builds a chute that takes the apple from the table top into the crate with nobody touching it on the way. 3. Teams may test as often as they like for ten minutes. 4. Then each team gets three official runs, and a run counts when the apple stays in the crate. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 15 min. Needs: flattened cardboard boxes, tape, an apple and a crate for each team, a table. Debrief: What did the team learn from the test that failed worst?
Five Apples Across, Newspaper Only 1. Mark two lines ten paces apart and put five apples on the first. Each team of three or four gets two sheets of newspaper. 2. The team has to get all five apples to the far line. Hands may touch the newspaper but never an apple, and everyone walks. 3. An apple that drops goes back to the first line. 4. After the first crossing, teams get two minutes to plan, then cross again for a better time. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 10 min. Needs: five apples and two sheets of newspaper for each team, tape or rope for the lines, a stopwatch. Debrief: What did your second plan keep from the first crossing?
Kernels in the Jar: Guess Alone, Then Together 1. Before the session, the leader counts dried corn kernels into a clear jar and writes the number down. 2. Each person writes a private guess on a slip. 3. Teams of three to five then get five minutes with the closed jar to agree on one team guess and a way of getting there. 4. Read out the count. Each team checks whether its team guess beat its members' own guesses. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 10 min. Needs: a clear jar of dried corn kernels counted beforehand, paper slips and pens. Debrief: Whose method did the team go with, and how was it chosen?
Leaves on the Lawn: Count a Square, Scale It Up 1. The question for every team of three or four: how many fallen leaves are lying on this lawn right now? 2. Teams get ten minutes and any method they like. One way is to mark out one square step, count the leaves in it and pace out the lawn. 3. Each team writes down its number and how it got there. 4. Teams compare numbers, walk each other through their methods, and agree on the one they trust most. Where: outdoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 15 min. Needs: paper and a pen for each team (a lawn with leaves on it). Debrief: Why were the teams' numbers so far apart, or so close?
Potluck Sign-Up, Fixed Without a Boss 1. Each person writes on a slip the one dish they would bring to a team harvest lunch, and keeps it hidden. 2. Turn all the slips over at once and sort them into mains, sides, desserts and drinks. 3. The group has five minutes to end up with something in every column and no dish twice. Nobody may tell another person what to bring, and each person may change their slip once. 4. Read the finished menu aloud. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 4 to 20. Time: 8 min. Needs: paper slips and pens. Debrief: Who changed their dish first, and what made them move?
Seed Feeder From the Recycling Bin 1. Each team of three or four gets clean cartons and plastic bottles, string, scissors and tape. 2. The team builds a bird feeder that hangs from a branch or a hook by its string. 3. The test: the leader pours in one cup of bird seed, and the feeder has to hang for a minute without tipping the seed out. 4. Teams that pass hang their feeders outside. Teams that fail get five minutes to rebuild. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 20 min. Needs: clean cartons and plastic bottles, string, scissors, tape, bird seed and a cup. Debrief: Which part did the team rebuild, and what showed you it had to change?
The Sorter's Secret Rule 1. Put a mixed heap on a table: leaves, acorns, pine cones, twigs, a few small gourds. One person, the sorter, thinks of a secret rule that splits the heap in two, such as "has a stem". 2. The sorter starts two piles with three things in each. 3. The others take turns holding up one thing and saying which pile it belongs in. The sorter answers only yes or no. 4. The group may name the rule only when everyone agrees on it. Then a new sorter takes over. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 to 12. Time: 10 min. Needs: a mixed heap of fallen leaves, acorns, pine cones, twigs and small gourds. Debrief: Which wrong guess told the group the most?

Trust 7

A Bulb for Something That Shows in Spring 1. Fill a large pot or a corner of a garden bed with soil and set out tulip bulbs, one for each person. 2. In turn, each person plants a bulb and names one thing they are starting now that will not show until spring. 3. Nobody comments: the group only listens. 4. Write the date on a plant label and push it into the soil. Meet at the pot again when the tulips flower. Where: outdoors. Group: 3 to 20. Time: 10 min. Needs: a large pot or a garden bed, soil, a tulip bulb for each person, a plant label. Debrief: Which thing you heard would you like to ask about again in spring?
A Time I Was New, Told Around a Lantern 1. Sit in a circle around a battery lantern, with the room lights low or outside at dusk. 2. The lantern goes to one person, who tells in a minute about a time they were new at something and what helped. 3. The lantern passes to whoever wants it next. Anyone may pass it straight on. 4. When it has been around, each person names one thing from the stories that this team could do for its next new member. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 to 12. Time: 12 min. Needs: a battery lantern or a flashlight. Debrief: Which of those things could start this week?
An Apple for Whoever Taught You Something 1. Put a bowl of apples in the middle, one for each person. The leader takes one, hands it to someone and says in one sentence what that person taught them this year. 2. Whoever receives an apple says only "thank you", then takes the next apple and does the same for someone who has none yet. The leader is left until last. 3. The chain goes on until the bowl holds one apple. 4. The last person to receive one gives it to the leader. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 to 20. Time: 8 min. Needs: an apple for each person, a bowl. Debrief: What was it like to hear what you had taught without knowing it?
An Hour of Raking for Someone Else 1. Before the day, the leader agrees on a yard with its owner, or on a patch of park with the people who look after it. 2. Crews of three share one rake, one bag and one tarp: one rakes, one bags, one hauls. 3. Every ten minutes the leader calls "switch", and each person moves to the next job. 4. Finish by walking the cleared ground together. Where: outdoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 60 min. Needs: a rake, yard bags, a tarp and work gloves for each crew of three. Debrief: What did you find out about a teammate by working beside them?
One Summer Photo, Two Questions 1. Each person picks one photo on their phone, from this past summer, that they are happy to show. 2. In turn, each holds it up and tells its story in thirty seconds. 3. Two listeners may ask one question each, and the teller may pass on either. 4. Go on until everyone who wants a turn has had one. Anyone may skip. Where: outdoors or indoors. Group: 3 to 12. Time: 10 min. Needs: nothing (each person's own phone). Debrief: What did you learn about someone that a work day would not have shown you?
Three Minutes Each, No Advice 1. Pairs set off on a walk along a path with leaves on it. An odd person out makes a trio with shorter turns. 2. For three minutes one person talks about what is taking most of their attention this season. The other only listens: no advice, no stories of their own. 3. At the leader's call, or a timer on a phone, the pair swaps. 4. Back in the group, each person says one word for how it was to be listened to that way. Where: outdoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 10 min. Needs: nothing (a path to walk, a phone timer). Debrief: What was hard about only listening?
What We Brought In Since Spring 1. Tape a long sheet of paper to a wall and write "spring" at one end and "today" at the other. 2. Everyone writes along it what the team has finished since spring, large or small. 3. Then each person adds names: beside any item, the name of someone who helped it happen. Nobody writes their own name. 4. Read the sheet in silence for a minute. Then each person points to one item they had forgotten. Where: indoors. Group: 3 or more. Time: 12 min. Needs: a long sheet of paper, tape, pens. Debrief: Whose name turned up in places you did not expect?

How this list was compiled: An original list of October 2026: 29 cooperative activities for a team in autumn, made from fallen leaves, apples, gourds, dried corn and a pot of chili. Nothing was copied from another list, and each entry is one way to run its activity, not a rule book. Group sizes and minutes are estimates for planning; no result of team building is claimed. This site's own safety rule holds for every card: nobody is lifted, caught, carried, held or blindfolded, everyone walks, there are no forfeits and no alcohol, and anyone may pass. One fact was checked on 2026-10-13 at Wikipedia (text under CC BY-SA 4.0): tulip bulbs are planted in fall and flower in spring, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip. Licence: own work

How it works

These fall team building activities are made from fallen leaves, apples, gourds, dried corn, a pot of chili and a box of old clothes. None is a Halloween game, and nobody is lifted, caught or held.

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Four types of card

Each card is an energizer, a communication task, a problem or a trust activity, and One of each type deals a session with one of each. The Where line on each card says outdoors, indoors or both.

When the leaves are wet

21 of the 29 run indoors. Read Out the Sweater Pattern, Five Hands, One Paper Leaf and What We Brought In Since Spring need little more than paper and pens. Describe Your Leaf, Then Find It in the Pile and The Sorter's Secret Rule work at a table with a bag of leaves and acorns brought in.

Chili Cook-Off, One Scorecard per Table needs its pots promised before the day, and An Hour of Raking for Someone Else needs a yard agreed.

Questions and answers

What are quick fall team building activities?

Whose Soup Was That? takes five minutes and needs nothing. Greenest to Brownest, One Leaf Each takes six with only the leaves on the ground, and A Walking V, Everyone Leads Once moves a big group across a lawn in about the same time.

Which fall team building activities are for outdoors?

26 of the 29, such as Leaf Pile on a Sheet, There and Back, Two Minutes to Plan, Then Bag the Leaves in Silence and Leaves on the Lawn: Count a Square, Scale It Up. Choose Outdoors under the button to deal only those.

What is a fall team building activity for a large group?

Chili Cook-Off, One Scorecard per Table: any number of tasters sit at tables of three to five, and each table hands in one agreed card. A Scarecrow That Stands by Itself also grows with the group, one box of clothes to a team.

Are these Halloween team building activities?

No. Nothing here uses costumes or scares, and One Marker, One Pumpkin, a Line Each treats a pumpkin as something to draw on. Games for October 31 at the office are on Halloween games for work.