Top Icebreaker Activities Part Two
Icebreaker activities are used to welcome and warm up the conversation among students in a new class, meeting or new situation. Any event that requires students to comfortably interact with each other and a teacher is an opportunity to use an icebreaker to help students feel more comfortable. An effective icebreaker will warm up the conversation in your class or meeting, reinforce the topic of the session, and ensure that students enjoy their interaction and the session. When participants don’t know each other, the icebreaker will help them introduce themselves to the other students.
Description: Form a circle, and each person in the circle has to choose a vegetable; now go around the circle to make sure no one has chosen the same vegetable. (If they have the same just ask one of them to pick another vegetable.) Pick someone to start off by saying his or her vegetable twice. However, everyone must have their teeth fully covered by their lips; if they laugh or show their pearly whites then they are out of the game. They have to say their veggie twice then someone else’s veggie twice. If they say someone’s veggie that is out, they are out too!
Eyes and Ears of Your Friend
Equipment: Blindfolds, soft squishy balls
Description: Get into pairs and one person puts on the blindfold, the other person is your eyes. They can talk to you but cannot pick up the ball or throw it for you (cannot physically help the blindfolded person). The idea is to throw a soft ball and hit another blindfolded person with the ball; if contact is made they swap and ‘the eyes’ become the ‘blindfolded’ person.
Toss a Name
Equipment: Small ball or soft object
Description: The class stands in a circle. One member of the class will start with the soft ball/ object and throw it to another member of the class in the circle calling out their name when they throw it. If you don’t know someone’s name you are allowed to ask before you throw the object.
A good challenge or variation is to see if the class can throw the object around the group getting each person only once, without talking. This is good for memory and also a challenge for students that might not know each other very well.
Have you Ever?
Equipment: 30 cones
Description: The class stands on markers in a circle facing inwards. A person is in the middle of the circle. The person in the middle will mention something that they have done. If anyone in the circle has done this they then need to move somewhere else in the circle. If there are no markers left they then become the person in the middle and need to mention something different they have experienced. Keep the game going until everyone has had a go.
Description: The class needs to pair up. In their pairs they must grab their partner’s right hand and point their index finger out at their partner. The student’s left arm is extended out back behind them. On the count of three the students are to try and poke their partner with their index finger.