e engaged.
- Unexpected. Part of the reason energizers work is that participants don’t anticipate them.
As a facilitator, you can benefit by having a few of these energizers ready for each training. You can use the energizers when the energy in the group is waning or the direction should be changed.
Following are examples of energizers used in financial education sessions:
General Description of the Activity and Instructions for Facilitating
(See Tool #1)
Materials Needed: Asset Bingo Card and pen for each participant.
About the Energizer: Participants try to get Bingo by filling in the blanks with other participants’ signatures. To sign a card, they must either answer the question or perform the action called for on the card.
1. Distribute cards (example in Tool #1).
2. Instruct participants that they get Bingo by filling in the blanks with other participants’ signatures, and that to sign a card, they must either answer the question or perform the action called for on the card.
3. Explain that participants may not have any repeats in terms of people signing a card, may not sign boxes themselves, and if the group is big enough, may not have the signatures of anyone sitting at their tables.
4. Instruct participants to move about the room and try to get Bingo; have people come to the facilitator if they get Bingo.
5. Allow the game to continue until five or so people get Bingo.
6. When people sit down, ask what people learned about their peers. Also, if there are content-related question as shown in the example be sure to answer these questions.
Asset Building Pictionary13
Materials Needed: Set of 5– 6 “pictionary cards,” scrap paper, and pencils/pens for each group
Samples of terms for your Pictionary Cards: “Credit Report”, “Net Worth”, “Investment”, “Individual Development Account”, “Asset Building”, “Predatory Lending”, “Credit Scores”, “Down payment”, Etc.
About the Energizer: Participants try to guess terms—without using words (written or spoken)—drawn by a team member. The team that gets through its stack of cards first is the winner.
1. Make a set of cards for each group (see ideas in sample list above). Each set can have the same cards (Credit Report, Net Worth, Investment, Individual Development Account, Asset Building) or different cards (Set 1: Credit Report, Net Worth, Investment, Individual Development Account, Asset Building; Set 2: Predatory Lending, Credit Scores, Down Payment, Small Business Loan, Financial Literacy; etc.).
2. Stack a set of cards (there should be no more than six cards) in front of you (facilitator) for each team.
3. Instruct each team to select a member to pick a card and draw what is on it.
4. The drawer from each group comes to wherever you have the stacks of cards and views the first card from his/her stack.
5. The drawer then goes back and draws the item for his/her group. The group has to guess what item is. The drawer cannot speak or use words. He/she may write down a word in a multiword phrase that has been spoken.
6. Once a team guesses the item correctly, the same or another drawer from the team comes to the facilitator for card #2 from the team’s stack.
7. The team that gets through its stack first is the winner.
Materials Needed: None
About the Energizer: Participants try to act out whatever “Simon” says by themselves or in teams of two, three, or four. Participants not able to team themselves are invited to sit down as this is an elimination game.
1. Explain that this is just like the game Simon Says, but a little different.
2. Explain that there are four things they will act out:
3. Making a budget – one person (do the actions of making a budget)
4. Making a deposit into an IDA – two people (one person pretends to be counting money to another person acting like a teller receiving the money).
5. Conducting a home inspection – three people (one person doing the inspection, one acting like a realtor, and one acting like an inspector).
6. Celebrating a business opening – four people (everyone jumping up and down and cheering).
7. Invite participants to stand up in a relatively 