5 Ice-Breaker Games to kick off 2012

One of the most exciting things about the New Year is seeing new students from younger year groups join the groups and seeing the great change in dynamics that can happen. But that can also be awkward, as newer members can feel intimidated and older members can become cliquey. So I’ve put together a list of ice-breaker games that I reckon can be used for young groups, old groups or other groups who happen to be around. Some are similar – so I wouldn’t do them all at once. But try them out, and see how they go!

Ice-Breaking Game # 5: The Toilet Paper Game.

The rules are as simple as… well let’s just say they’re simple. What you do is pass around a roll of toilet paper (and it doesn’t need to be the 3-ply Rolls Royce stuff for this game) with the simple instruction ‘take what you need’. The students will ask lots of questions, but that’s the only instruction they get. When everybody has taken their portion, then go around the circle and each person has to share as many interesting facts about themselves as squares of paper they’ve taken. That’s it! Simple huh?

Ice-Breaking Game # 4: The Skittles Game

All you need for this one is a packet of skittles. You’ll want to keep an eye on the clock, because this one can start to drag on. Encourage the students to keep the stories short! What happens here is that the packet of Skittles is passed around the group. Each person takes on (at random) and as they do they share a story about themselves, which corresponds with the colour they’ve taken. You can make your own categories, but I tend to go with: red = a story about blood, yellow = a happy story, purple = a sad story, green = a disgusting story and orange a story about a pet. It’s a good way of encouraging the quieter students to share something.

Ice-Breaking Game # 3: The Three-Threes Game

For this one, break your group into smaller groups of three. Their task (in small groups) is to think of three things that all the members of their group have in common. But they can’t be boring things! Hair colour, sex and the number of fingers you have are out.

Ice-Breaking Game # 2: Human Bingo        

Before the group, draw up a grid of boxes with all kinds of different criteria, or facts in each one. For example, you might include: likes anchovies, has been to New Zealand, has broken a leg, has become a Christian in the last two years, knows all the words to “Friday” by Rebecca Black, knows how to juggle etc. Each person is given a grid with these categories and a pen – then let them loose to gather names of people who fit those criteria. The first person with names in all boxes wins something.

Ice-Breaking Game # 1: The Line-up Game (which desperately needs a more creative name, so please throw your ideas in…)

So for this, I’d break the group up into ‘teams’ of about five or six. Then, you give a category and the members of each team need to line themselves up in order. For example, such ‘categories’ might include: birthday month, or birthday day, or height, or number of siblings, or how many Weet-Bix they tend to eat for breakfast (if they had to eat Weet-Bix, because it was the only food left on the planet), or age etc. To increase the challenge, make a rule that nobody can speak. To take that challenge to an extreme: nobody can speak or gesture with their hands.

So that’s my five ice-breaker games for 2012. If you’ve got others, or variations on these then feel free to share them via the comments section below!

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