Four Square
Children foster lifelong relationships on the playground. Use this fun throwback to childhood to energize the group and build those relationships for your adult selves.
How to run it
- The first four players begin by standing in one of four squares
- The remaining players stand in line near square "1"
- Play continues until a player misses the ball, allows the ball to bounce twice in his/her square, or hits the ball out of bounds
- The remaining players rotate forward, and the player at the front of the line goes to square "1"
- Note this exercise is best when done in People Science teams and incoroprated with another exercise
- It doesn't do any good not to build the relationships with your competitors or people you are in line with
- In other words, add the instructions to simply talk about your favorite childhood game with the person next to you in line or if the person in the last/4th/kind spot is there for more than 3 rounds, they have to tell a story about losing while on top while playing the game!
Run this exercise live
The facilitator console stays in this browser. Its QR handoff is a short-lived participant snapshot containing only public exercise instructions, phase, prompt, and timer state.
What participants need now
Materials:
This is a participant-safe snapshot, not a response form. It sends nothing back to the facilitator.
Prompts to use +
The first four players begin by standing in one of four squares
The remaining players stand in line near square "1"
Play continues until a player misses the ball, allows the ball to bounce twice in his/her square, or hits the ball out of bounds
The remaining players rotate forward, and the player at the front of the line goes to square "1"
Note this exercise is best when done in People Science teams and incoroprated with another exercise
It doesn't do any good not to build the relationships with your competitors or people you are in line with
Run this with your AI assistant +
Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.
Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: Four Square. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: The first four players begin by standing in one of four squares; The remaining players stand in line near square "1"; Play continues until a player misses the ball, allows the ball to bounce twice in his/her square, or hits the ball out of bounds; The remaining players rotate forward, and the player at the front of the line goes to square "1". Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.
Origin unverified
- Where we observed it: The strongest current observations come from Relationship Makers Handbook; aggregators are listed as additional observations, not origin proof. (1 source observed, including Relationship Makers Handbook.)
- What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
- No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
- Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.