Have a sleeping bag rolling race

You’ll need

Stopwatch or phone
Sleeping bags

Before you begin 

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples. Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely. 
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Setting up this activity

You may want to ask people to bring their own sleeping bag if they have one.
If people don’t have a sleeping bag, you could see if someone can bring an extra one, or see if you can borrow one from another section or Group.
You may want to run the activity Teamwork Tents to learn to put the tent up alongside this activity.
You could also use this activity to put together bedding rolls, rather than sleeping bags.

Run this activity

Gather everyone together, then tell them that you’ll be practising putting sleeping bags in and out of bags.
Ask if anyone has done this before and has any tips or trips.
Make sure each person or pair has a sleeping bag.
Let people have time practising putting the sleeping bag in and out the bag.
Everyone should get into a pair.
When everyone’s ready, have everyone take their sleeping bag out the bag and place the storage bag to the side of it.
Each pair should move back from the sleeping bag, so everyone is an equal distance away from it to make it fair.
When everyone’s ready, shout ‘Go!’ and start the stopwatch.
One person should hold the storage bag, while one person stuffs it in.
Each pair should try to get their sleeping bag back in the bag as quickly as then can.
Whoever finishes first, wins. However, you could also reward determination and perseverance.
After doing this race, you could try to make them more inventive. For example, you could try doing it blindfolded, with one hand on your head, or while holding hands with someone else.
If you want to make it harder, people could take part individually, rather than in a pair.

Reflection

This activity was a chance for everyone to learn how to put a sleeping bag away. This activity also needed everyone to work in a team.

Did you manage to get the sleeping bag back in the bag? Did people find any steps especially tricky?

Do people think it would be easier to put a sleeping bag away alone or with a group of friends? How did people work with your partner to make sure you put the sleeping bag away as well as you could?

Communication is a really important part of teamwork. Were you good at listening to each other? How did you make sure each other had the chance to be heard, as well as listen to each other’s ideas?

How did you use each other’s skills or knowledge to try to be as efficient a possible? Is there anything people would do differently next time they put a sleeping bag away?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.

Active games: The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.