Pin Down
Pin Down is a relationship mapping exercise that helps participants build useful connections and understand how people, roles, or ideas relate.
How to run it
- The group should be divided into two teams, and each team goes to their end line to wait for the signal to begin the game.
- At no time may a student from one team cross over onto the other team’s side.
- When the game begins, students run to the center to grab balls.
- The goal of the game is to knock over the opposing team’s pins while defending your own, throwing or rolling the balls.
- If a pin gets knocked down, no one may touch it. The leader takes the pin out of play.
- Students may defend their pins by standing in front/back/side of it, but if they knock it over by mistake, it is taken out of play.
- The game ends when one team has knocked down all the others’ pins.
Run this exercise live
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Materials:
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Prompts to use +
The group should be divided into two teams, and each team goes to their end line to wait for the signal to begin the game.
If a pin gets knocked down, no one may touch it. The leader takes the pin out of play.
Students may defend their pins by standing in front/back/side of it, but if they knock it over by mistake, it is taken out of play.
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: Pin Down. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: The group should be divided into two teams, and each team goes to their end line to wait for the signal to begin the game.; If a pin gets knocked down, no one may touch it. The leader takes the pin out of play.; Students may defend their pins by standing in front/back/side of it, but if they knock it over by mistake, it is taken out of play.. 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.