Shuffle Butt Teacher Training

This is a group energizer activity. Ask students to make sure their chairs are very close to each other in the circle. The chairs should be touching. Stand in the middle of the circle, but leave your empty chair in place. Tell students that in this activity, you are going to tell them which direction to move (right or left), and on your command each time, they will move in that direction, starting with the person beside the empty chair. You will say, “shuffle butt right” and students will move to the right. Then you will call out “shuffle butt left” and they must reverse the direction, etc. Each time a chair is vacated, there should be someone shuffling into it. However, students must understand that they can only “shuffle their butts” if the chair beside them is empty! Once the group understands the commands, speed up the process and change directions frequently. Try to confuse the group. Students should keep hands in front or on their knees for safety reasons. If you want, you can sit down in the vacant chair and whoever didn’t make it onto the chair in time now becomes the leader in the centre of the circle. The new person in the middle will then continue calling out commands.