Foursquare
Foursquare is a team reflection exercise for reflection and learning: it helps participants reflect on experience and turn observations into learning.
How to run it
- The ball can only bounce once in any square.
- Each player needs to hit the ball with any part of his/her hand into an opposing player’s square after it has bounced only once in their his/her square.
- If a player catches or holds the ball, that player needs to return to the waiting line.
- If the ball bounces more than one time before it is hit into another square, the player who let the ball bounce needs to return to the waiting line for another try.
- If the ball is returned before it is allowed to bounce, the player who returned the ball early needs to return to the waiting line.
- Anytime a player moves out of the game into the waiting line, a square is left open. The person in front of the line advances to square D or 4, and the remaining players advance to close the gaps between A or 1 and D or 4.
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 ball can only bounce once in any square.
Each player needs to hit the ball with any part of his/her hand into an opposing player’s square after it has bounced only once in their his/her square.
If the ball bounces more than one time before it is hit into another square, the player who let the ball bounce needs to return to the waiting line for another try.
If the ball is returned before it is allowed to bounce, the player who returned the ball early needs to return to the waiting line.
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: Foursquare. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: The ball can only bounce once in any square.; Each player needs to hit the ball with any part of his/her hand into an opposing player’s square after it has bounced only once in their his/her square.; If the ball bounces more than one time before it is hit into another square, the player who let the ball bounce needs to return to the waiting line for another try.; If the ball is returned before it is allowed to bounce, the player who returned the ball early needs to return to the waiting line.. 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 Playworks; aggregators are listed as additional observations, not origin proof. (1 source observed, including Playworks.)
- 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.