The Turn the Sheet Activity is a free icebreaker you can use to get people working together during a training session. Everyone stands on a bed sheet, and the challenge is to turn it over without anyone stepping off. It sounds easy, but it takes teamwork, communication, and a bit of creative thinking.
In workplace training sessions, facilitators often use the Turn the Sheet Activity as a quick way to get groups collaborating before moving into more complex discussions.
- groups of six or more people working closely together
- around 10–15 minutes, depending on how much discussion you allow
- a facilitator watching how teams communicate and coordinate
- very little equipment or preparation
The Turn the Sheet Activity works particularly well in workplace training because it can be easily adapted to make the task simpler or more challenging, depending on group size and learning objectives.
This activity also gets people laughing and helps trainers to overcome the challenge of getting participants active and engaged, and it’s part of our free team-building activities hub for workplace training, used by trainers and facilitators.
How Long Does the Turn the Sheet Activity Take and What Does It Cost?
10 minutes is a good time frame for this activity, although you can add on 5 minutes after the activity itself for discussion about how the participants felt about the activity.
This short debrief allows the facilitator to link what happened during the task back to workplace behaviors and learning objectives.
For example, facilitators often ask participants what strategies helped them stay coordinated and how those behaviors show up in day-to-day work.
This is a free activity that can be built into a training session and is included in some of our ready-to-use training materials for workplace facilitators.
What Type of Team Building Activity Is This?
This is a team-building icebreaker designed for use in workplace training sessions.
- Team Building
- Icebreaker
How Many People Are Needed for the Turn the Sheet Activity?
The Turn the Sheet Activity works well with teams of six or more people. For larger groups, divide participants into smaller teams and give each team a separate sheet.
What Is the Purpose of the Turn the Sheet Activity?
This task helps team members work together by coordinating their actions, making it especially effective alongside other problem-solving activities for workplace teams.
It works particularly well as an experiential learning activity because participants learn through doing rather than discussion alone.
It also works well as a light trust-building exercise, similar to other trust-building activities used in workplace training.
Participants have to stand on a bedsheet on the floor and then have to turn the sheet over without stepping off the sheet.
How to Run the Turn the Sheet Activity
As the trainer, make sure you have a spare or old bed sheet that you have cut into smaller parts; i.e., cut an old bed sheet in half so you can provide two teams with a sheet.
In the classroom, you will then ask teams of 6 or more people to stand together on their sheet.
You then give them 10 minutes as a group to turn the sheet completely over.
No team member may step off the sheet. If they do, then they must start the task over again.
You can adapt this task to make it easier or harder for the teams by changing the size of the teams or the size of the sheet.
You can make the activity more challenging by using a smaller sheet, but do make sure that there is still enough room for everyone to move safely on the sheet. Another option is to allocate some participants strategic roles to help in the planning of the team’s approach.
Facilitator tip: If groups get stuck, resist the urge to intervene. The learning often comes from noticing how teams respond to frustration or unclear leadership.
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Benefits of the Turn the Sheet Activity
The Turn the Sheet Activity is always a popular option because it gets people laughing and engaged as a group and helps to teach leadership.
It also reinforces the importance of working together and supporting one another to achieve a shared goal.
The activity also helps teams practice coordination and shared problem-solving under mild time pressure, which mirrors common workplace situations.
Trainers often pair this activity with short decision-making activities for teams to extend learning beyond the icebreaker stage.
In short, the Turn the Sheet Activity is a fast, low-prep team-building icebreaker that helps workplace teams practice coordination and communication under pressure.
For more short exercises, you might be interested in the 5- and 10-minute icebreakers and energizers.
