Zoom and Rezoom Game

Jun 7, 2021 Mcteambuilding.com 6 Comments 4771 Views

Zoom and rezoom game is based on the intriguing, wordless, picture books “Zoom” and “Re-Zoom”. How to put the pictures in order without showing them to each other.

Duration: 20-30 minutes
Team Stage: Storming, Norming, Performing
Type Of Activity: Experiential Activity
Materials: Zoom or ReZoom Books

ZOM AND REZOOM GAME SUMMARY

This game is based on the intriguing, wordless, picture books “Zoom” and “Re-Zoom” by Istvan Banyai which consist of 30 sequential pictures within pictures. The Zoom narrative moves from a rooster to a ship to a city street to a desert island and outer space. Zoom has been published in 18 countries. The Re-Zoom narrative moves from an Egyptian hieroglyphic to a film set to an elephant ride to a billboard to a train. A group tries to create a unified story from a set of sequential pictures. The pictures are randomly ordered and handed out. Each person has a picture but cannot show it to others. Requires patience, communication, and perspective taking in order to recreate the story’s sequence. This engaging group activity helps develop communication skills, perspective taking, and problem solving skills.

SET UP ZOOM AND REZOOM GAME

To create the game from the book, separate the picture pages of the book into one page sheets and laminate or place in clear plastic sleeves to protect them and prolong usage.

ZOOM AND REZOOM GAME INSTRUCTIONS

Count out pictures (keeping them in the sequential order). There should be one picture per person. After there are the same amount of pictures as people the facilitator should shuffle the pictures.
Hand out one picture per person, making sure the pictures are in a random order.
Explain that participants may only look at their own pictures and must keep their pictures hidden from others.
Encourage participants to study their picture because it contains important information to help solve a problem.
The challenge is for the group to sequence the pictures in the correct order without looking at one another’s pictures.
Participants will generally mill around, talking to others, to see whether their pictures have anything in common. Sometimes leadership efforts will emerge to try to understand the overall story.
When the group believes they have all the pictures in order (usually after ~15 minutes), the pictures can be turned over for everyone to see.

VARIATIONS

Use as a novel icebreaker by handing each participant a picture on arrival. When everyone has arrived, explain that each person is holding part of a story and that the group task is to find out what the story is by putting their pictures in sequence.
Use a time limit to increase difficulty and enhance focus on teamwork.
Team performance can be measured (e.g., for a competition) by counting how many pictures are out of sequence.
If there are a few more people than cards, then pair people up.
For larger groups, if there are enough people, then have 2 or more groups running the activity at the same time, using two sets of books.
For smaller groups, challenge them to complete the activity without talking. This increases the difficulty and creates the need for expressive sign language. In general, allow large groups to talk because there is enough complexity sorting out the pictures.
Another way to increase complexity with small groups is to give each person more than one picture.
To reduce complexity for young groups (e.g., pre-school), allow a small group to look through all pictures and organize the story from beginning to end.

SAMPLE DEBRIEFING QUESTIONS

What?

What was the goal of this activity?
Did your group do well? What could have improved?
How did your group make decisions? Was it effective or ineffective?
How did your group manage conflict that arose?

So What?

Alignment

Are we the only ones that define our purpose? What or who influences our purpose?
How do we communicate our purpose to new members or people outside of our group?
Why is it important that we all understand the purpose of our group/activity/etc.?

Inclusion and Involvement

What does it mean to be inclusive or exclusive?
What did we do as a group that was inclusive? That was exclusive/not inclusive?
Why is inclusion and involvement important for our group?

Feedback

Why is feedback important? What kind of feedback is important?
What does constructive/effective feedback look like?
How did positive/negative/or no feedback affect your success?

Now What?

What does this activity tell you about the strengths of your group? The areas for improvement?
What’s one commitment each person can make?
What are three lessons the group has learned that they can continue to work on?
How can we implement these lessons in our school/organization?
What can you do differently moving forward?

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