Icebreaker Games

Age 8 +

Tag my Name

The group stands in a circle, the facilitator explains that each person in turn has to say their name, and then do a gesture that expresses their personality. If they can’t think of anything, the facilitator can suggest that the gesture shows a favourite hobby, sport or activity. Go round the group sharing names and gestures until everyone has had a turn.

Then the group can play “tag” with the names and gestures. While standing still, the participants can tag each other one at a time by saying a person’s name and repeating their gesture. The facilitator should encourage the participants to say everyone’s name without repeats, so that all members of the group are included.

Change Places if…

Everyone sits in a circle. The facilitator thinks of something that will get people moving, e.g. “Change places if you are wearing blue” or, “Change places if you have a sister,” or “Change places if you are left-handed.” Everyone who fits the description (i.e. everyone wearing blue) must move to a different chair. You can use this game to introduce the theme that you are then going on to workshop, for example “Change places if you like having friends” if doing a friendship workshop.

If you want to use this game as a knockout game when you start there should be one fewer chairs than people. The person who is left in the middle calls out their “Change places if…”, and tries to get a seat. Usually a different person will be left standing, and become “it.”

This is a great game which can be as leisurely or fast-paced and physical as the facilitator want is to be.

Age 10+

Pull My Finger

This is a great icebreaker and attention-grabber which works with all ages. It can stimulate group activity to get people together, focused, challenged, having fun and ready for action. The participants stand in a circle and put their arms out to the sides. The facilitator asks each participant to put their left hand palm facing up and then their right index finger pointing down and touching on neighbour’s outstretched palm.

The facilitator then says – “When I say the word go, do two things…. grab the finger in your left hand, and prevent your right finger from being grabbed… 1 … 2 … 3 … [add suspense] … Go!”.

Repeat several times. The trick is dramatizing the “Go!”, build up the suspense, most people will jump the gun, adding to the fun. Trying a different trigger word adds to the fun e.g., “Cheese”, and mention lots of other “eeze” words for humor – peas, sneeze, wheeze, please and freeze to catch them out.

Party

Role playing can be a lot of fun for groups who know each other and used for groups to get to know each other. One fun way is to get the group to pretending to meet in different circumstances, for example, a party.

The group leader can demonstrate walking up to someone, introducing themselves, finding out the other person’s name, having a bit of chit-chat and then moving on to meet someone else. This needs to be done with enthusiasm.

Set the group off, introducing themselves to each other then change the scenarios to keep it fresh, some examples are:

On the beach
At a funeral for a mutually loved friend
As Olympic athletes.
On a blind date
As prisoners arriving at a jail (e.g., what did you do?)

As the group get braver you can add in details about who they and the other people are such as:

They are aliens who don’t speak the same language
They are friends who fell out who haven’t seen each other in a long time.
As soon as they meet they instantly fall in love

Age 16+

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About One Another

This is a challenging and intimate get-to-know-you activity which works best for smaller groups of up to 10.

It involves fun and interesting self-disclosure by sharing answers to some honest, quirky questions. Do some other warm up games first and establish an initial trust amongst group members before using this activity. Don’t rush this exercise and consider making the activity optional. You can adapt and edit the questions to suit your particular group or workshop topic.

If you were to choose a new name for yourself, what would it be?
If you were given an extra £10 in change at Asda, what would you do with it and why?
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt from a past relationship?
What’s one of your worst habits?
What was the best day of the past week for you – why?
What are you wearing today which is most reflective of who you are?
Choose a unique item from your purse/wallet/bag and explain why you carry it around.
If you could change one thing about your physical appearance what would it be and why?
Share one of your most embarrassing moments.
If you were given a million dollars and 24 hours to spend it in, (no depositing it in the bank or investing it) what would you buy?

Getting to Know You

This activity is simply a series of questions which require participants to arrange themselves in space in relation to other people according to various individual and social characteristics. It’s important that as a facilitator you use warmth and friendly encouragement to help to break natural hesitancy, use laughter and join in as a participant.

You can use any number of questions up to a maximum of ten dependent on the length of your warm up. First ask the group to
find someone who:

Had the same breakfast as you
Has the same shoe size
Has a different religious belief
You haven’t met yet, but would really like to
Has the same favourite season
Has the same favourite sense

To get the group moving even more, ask the group to them to line up in order of:

Number of siblings
Thumb size
Number of glasses of water (or cups of coffee) you drink per day
Introversion / extraversion
How tired / alert you feel
Number of different countries you’ve visited

Have You Ever?

This works best with larger groups and is a great fun icebreaker but do some other warm-ups first! The facilitator explains that they will call out different things that may or may not apply to each person. If the item does apply to you, you go into the middle and high 5 with anyone else who runs in. A list of about 20 questions should be tailored to the particular group, setting, and workshop goals, but we’ve given you some suggestions are below. Usually the questions start with “Have You Ever….?”, but feel free to change this if it fits better, e.g., “Does Anyone Have….?”

Be careful to not ask questions that are going to embarrass or ridicule in any way. Motivate the participants to join in, so use lots of
enthusiasm and encouragement.

Possible Questions:

Have you ever sung karaoke?
Have you got both a brother and a sister?
Have you ever ridden a horse?
Have you ever eaten frogs’ legs?
Can you speak 3 or more languages?
Have you ever been in love with someone who was vegetarian?
Have you swum in 3 or more different seas/oceans?
Have you broken 3 or more bones in your body?
Have you done volunteer work sometime in the last month?
Have you ever had a close relative who lived to over 100?
Have you ever cooked a meal by yourself for more than 10 people?
Have you ever been parachuting or done a bungee jump?
Can you not click your fingers on your non-dominant hand?
Have you ever seen a polar bear?

A variation on this is to get the participants to generate their own questions. The group sit on chairs except the person who is IT, standing in the centre. The person in the middle asks a “Have You Ever” question that is true for him/her self e.g., “have you ever climbed a mountain?” Anyone whose answer is “yes” gets up and moves to an empty seat. The person who asked the question tries to get a seat, leaving one other person without a seat and they become the new IT.

We have a general drama workshop for KS1 and KS2 for more details click here