Posts Tagged ‘fun icebreaker’

Ice Breakers are great for getting groups of people who barely know each to open up and share a bit about themselves. Here's a really easy one that's quick to set-up:

You will need 2 ropes or tape or something to make 2 parallel lines on the floor. The gap between the lines should be wide enough to have all the group stand inside the middle section of the 2 lines.

Make a list of pairs for example:

• beach or mountain
• active or relaxed
• wine or beer
• meat or vegetables
• rock or pop
• hot or cold
• travel or stay at home
• gold or silver
• smart or casual
• coffee or tea
• quiet or lively

New school? New term? New Students? The new school year is nearly upon us. How do you get those kids integrated and off to an enthusiastic flying start? By careful selection and use of back to school ice breaker games. Here's a selection:

Balloon Game

Depending on their age the classic game with the balloons is an absolute favourite with younger kids;  it’s fun, inexpensive and physical and helps reduce anxieties. Have enough balloons on strings for every child to have 2 balloons. Tie each balloon to children's ankles. Make sure the area is safe - lawn or grass is best in case they fall over their strings. Each child has to try and burst another child's ballooon whilst protecting their own. The last child with a balloon remaining is the winner!

Yarn Game

This game is suitable for adults as well as children - just change the questions.

You will need a large ball of yarn and have the class sitting in a circle. Hold onto the end of the yarn and throw the ball to a student. You then ask them a getting to know you question like; where do you live or what is your favourite color, animal, toy, movie etc.  They answer the question and then hold the yarn and then throw the ball to another student and asks them a question. Make sure everyone hold onto the yarn and does not let go. At the end you will have a giant web of yarn that connects the whole class. Explain that whilst we are all individuals we are still connected in some way to each other.

Niceties

This is a great ice breaker for groups who know each other.

Tape a  piece of flip chart paper onto each person’s back. Each person writes something they like about the person who’s paper they are writing on. Even if they don’t know each other very well, they can find something nice to write on the paper…ie, nice hair, great smile, warm and friendly etc. When they read the nice comments they will be ecstatic and it teaches the importance of small niceties and how good it feels to give and receive compliments.

Ice breaker games have been continually used by professional trainers, teachers and group leaders for many years. They are one of the best and most fun ways of "breaking the ice", opening up groups and preparing the group for the main part of any event. Sharon Naylor has been a proponent of ice breaker games for all her career; ever since she took part in an ice breaker! For more fantastic ice breaker ideas to speed up that getting to know you stage for back-to-school classes and any other groups check-out her ice breaker ideas web-site NOW

Who Am I?

Here's a great little fun icebreaker you can use for teams that are quite well established. Works well with all kinds of teams including school groups and as a meetings ice breaker.

Divide the group up into teams of at least 5 players. One person is being questioned in each round and will answer a question from every other team member. The only trick is that they answer the questions as if they were another person in the team! Mmmm... tricky. The questioners should think carefully about the questions they ask and really try and get into the mind of the person they are trying to be.

At the end of each round - every person in the team gets to guess the identity of the person they are trying to be.

Possible questions could be:

• If you were an animal what would you be?
• if you were a bird what type of bird would you be?
• What would be your ideal vacation?
• Which famous person do you most respect?
• if tomorrow was your last day on earth how would you spend it?
• What clothes would you love to wear but never dare?
• What is your wildest dream?
• Who is a leader you most respect?
• What is the greates quality you posess?
• What annoys you most about other people?
• What do you do if you make a mistake? own up or cover up?
• Do you prefer to love or be loved?

So what do we learn from this? That people's preconceptions about another person can be totally wrong or right or mostly somewhere inbetween. It's good if everybody in the team has a chance to be the assumed person. Explore what it's like to be mis- represented or even deeper what is that that person does to make someone think that way?

Sharon Naylor is passionate about ice breaker games for work, play, parties, meetings, groups and clubs. In fact anywhere people are connecting to others whether it be for the first time or even when familiar with each other. Icebreaker games inject a sense of fun into proceedings, speed up that getting to know you stage and get people ready to face the rest of the event with energy and enthusiasm. For hundreds of amazing, fun icebreakers that you can use with your own groups and teams visit the ice breaker ideas web-site.

Here's a great introductory ice breaker for a team or group meeting for the first time. All you need is a large ball of string or wool.

Introduce the exercise "We're all meeting for the first time. Most of us don't know each other at all. It's easier to get to know each other and make connections with people when you find something in common. This is the main purpose of an ice breaker game. In some cases you might have a lot in common with an individual but often you have to discover what it is first. This game will give you a helping hand"

Ask everyone to sit or stand in a circle. Starting with yourself, say "My name is Sharon" and start to talk about yourself. "I have 3 sisters. I live in Wales. I walk to work. I work at...etc. etc." By this time hopefully you might find someone else in the group with 3 sisters or even a sister and they then shout "CONNECT!" when they have found something to connect with you. Holding onto the tail-end of the ball of string you throw the ball to them. They then introduce themselves and continue saying something about themselves until someone else connects with them. They then hold onto the string and throw the ball to that person. And on it goes.

Ensure everyone has a go at connecting with someone else in the group; you might want to add this as a rule until everyone has had a go. Continue connecting until you have had enough. You will surely now be in a mess with strands of wool or string  going all over the circle.

End the ice breaker game by explaining that we all have things in common with other people, but they are often hidden. Look at all the ways we are interconnected with each other... look at all the strands of string. Building relationships and rapport can be speeded up by finding and sharing similarities. 

Sharon Naylor is passionate about ice breaker games for work, play, parties, meetings, groups and clubs. In fact anywhere people are connecting to others whether it be for the first time or even when familiar with each other. Ice breaker games inject a sense of fun into proceedings, speed up that getting to know you stage and gets people ready to face the rest of the event with energy and enthusiasm. For more brilliant ice breaker ideas that you can use with your own groups and teams visit the ice breaker ideas web-site.

Ice breaker games are powerful allies for getting groups and teams to gel and work together quickly.

Many trainers, group leaders, teachers, charity workers, committee leaders, church, youth and team leaders to professional consultants and managers employ ice breakers to break down barriers and accelerate the getting to know you phase of learning and engagement.

This ice breaker game is ideal for newish teams and  ideal group size is 7 -15.

• So, give each person an envelope and enough strips of paper for every person in the group. So, if there are 12 people in the group give each person an envelope and 12 strips of paper.
• Get everyone to write their name on the envelop and then pass the envelope to the person on their left.
• Instruct every receiver of the envelope to write a positive first impression about the person with their name on the envelope they hold. Then place the strip of paper in the enveope and pass to the left again. Repeat the process for every person in the group.

Eventually the envelope will return to the owner and will contain 12 strips of paper, each with a positive first impression. Ask each person in turn to dip into their envelope and read aloud a positive attribute.

How powerful is this! Each person will have an envelope full of positive messages and will feel warm towards the group, even though they barely know each other. This is a fantastic platform to build on!

Get more fantastic and brilliant ice breaker games and ideas for your groups and teams at ice-breaker-ideas.com

I was invited to a birthday party of a long time friend not that long ago and call me a party pooper but I really did not want to go. Why not you ask? Well I knew we would not know a soul but the party hostess, who would be busy with all her social duties, and the last time I went to such a party I was looking forward to leaving as soon as I got there. It's not that I'm unsociable or boring (at least I hope not) - it's just that people don't seem to introduce people these days and sometimes it's such an effort to be always making conversation with new people.

Now if they'd employed a few interesting and fun-filled party ice breakers to introduce people and make people feel more relaxed I would definitely have wanted to stay.

This is one of my prime reasons for using ice breakers at any event you host. Whether it be a party or social function, or a corporate meeting, training or company bash, you want people to be buzzing and telling people how great it was and really looking forward to the next event, meeting or whatever! That's why i'm such a great advocate of  ice breaker games for any event.

Don't let your people be party poopers, going home and telling people how boring it was. Get them interacting and having fun. No event should be without an ice breaker game at any cost. Make sure your event is an event to remember - get ice breaker games and ideas from the ice breaker ideas web-site

Teachers, does going back to school fill you with joy or dread? A new set of pupils, colleagues, head and a new set of curriculum, forms and administration?

I'm not a teacher but it must be really difficult having had a long period of time off over the summer months and then face a new school year. We always think about the trials of pupils but what about the teachers?

I'm all for having fun wherever I work or study - it makes learning so much easier. I love the experiential nature of our team building games and events and the ice breakers we employ at the start. So it doesn't surprise me that many teachers employ a good ice breaker session during their Induction Week. Pupils can have fun reconnecting and new pupils will really enjoy getting to know the others through a simple ice breaker game.

At the residential youth centre I worked in, we used to run a whole evening of youth group icebreakers with every new residential group. A couple of hours of ice breaker games really helped the kids to relax and get to know each other quickly. They set the tone for the whole week and they set the tone for your high school year.

Try some for yourself this Induction Week and you'll see the remarkable effect they can have on your students. We have lots of tried and tested, fantastic ice breaker ideas games and ideas on our web-site ice-breaker-ideas.com

What's a good ice breaker I'm always being asked?

 First we find out who the ice breaker is for; is it  a corporate ice breaker or for a work group? Or is it for a party, youth group or family reunion? Is it for a group who do not know each other at all or a group that know each other a bit?

This is useful to know as you can take more risks with with a group that know each other and even more with groups that know each other well. Play safe with groups that don't know each other at all. An ice breaker is meant to help people relax and get to know each other and should never make people feel uncomfortable.

Once we know about the group we then look at what we're trying to achieve with the ice breaker. You might be looking for quick and easy fun introductions or something related to the topic of the day or something that will not forget!

You will find after a few goes of using ice breakers that they will become second nature and you will soon develop favourites. Particularly ice breakers are ones that can be used for many different types of groups.

A word of warning though; you should never trial your ice breakers on a group without carefully thinking them through. Better still, try them out on your family and friends first!

A good ice breaker therefore, carefully matches your target group, is non-threatening and allows people to have fun together.

A good ice breaker that we use a lot with corporate groups is "Speed Dating" - arrange 2 long row of chairs according to the number of people attending. Have them facing each other so people can sit face to face and get everyone to sit down. Announce that you have a minute each to introduce yourselves. Blow a whistle after each minute and then after each couple have introduced themselves, instruct all participants to move to the seat to the right. Each person will get a new partner to talk to. Carry for as long as you have time or until all introductions have been made.

Learn how to play this fun, fast, ice breaker and hundreds more at ice-breaker-ideas.com

Don't have just an ordinary event - make it memorable with ice breaker games.!

The summer holidays are drawing to a close and soon thoughts of returning to school will be foremost in our minds.

Most children look forward to going back to school to see friends - like my daughter - but unfortunately there are also some who dread the thought - like my son.

If you are a teacher why not ease your pupils back into the new term with a session of ice breaker games? Ice breakers help new pupils integrate into the class and quickly get to know other pupils. They help them bond with others in a way that would take a long time otherwise.

For pupils who are not so keen to return to school, ice breakers will inject a sense of fun into the curriculum and help them re-connect with friends and others that they have not seen for weeks.

Above all, as a teacher, you want your pupils to integrate quickly and easily so you can get on with the job of teaching, motivating and inspiring them for the coming term. Youth group ice breakers work like magic and will help you have fun with your pupils and really engage with them, so the job of getting them to concentrate and look forward to the rest of the term will be  a lot easier.

Many of the schools we work with have Induction Weeks at the start of the new school year and give alot of time over to helping pupils settle in - I can think of no better way for Ice breaker games to be utilised than in this setting.

For hundreds of inspiring ideas for your back to school induction week take a look at our web-site -  Incredible Ice Breaker Games and Ideas.

On Friday we will be enjoying the last few days of the school holidays with friends - we're off to the theatre in Cardiff with friends who have 2 children, similar ages to ours.

Everytime we meet up the kids insist we play an ice breaker game we have played with them since they were small. We know it as "Killer" but you might know it as "Wink Murder" or some other name. It's a great party ice breaker!

They find it so much fun, that even though they are now 13 and 14 years old, we still have to play it. Here's how it goes:

How to Play Killer:

Tear a peice of paper into strips, enough for each person in the room. On one peice write Policeman and on another write Killer. Fold all the strips of paper up and place in a bowl. Pass the bowl round and get each person to take a peice of paper. Without saying anything each person looks at the paper, folds it back up and places back in the bowl.

When asked the policeman reveals themself. The killer keeps quiet. The object of the game is for the policeman to catch the killer before the killer, kills all the players. How does the killer kill all the players? By winking at them!

Everyone is silent during the game apart from the policeman who is the only person who can speak when trying to identify the killer -if they get it wrong the killer has won.

When a player has been winked at by the killer they can let out a blood curdling cry as they slump to the floor or silently crumple! Obviously the killer has to try and wink at people when the policeman is not looking at them and it helps if you sit in a circle!

Give it a go and let me know your favourite ice breaker game.

Don't forget we have hundreds of "killer" ice breaker games and ideas on our web-site and many can be instantly downloadable in formats for youth groups, parties and corporate groups.