Ice breaking games for students
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This document provides descriptions of several icebreaker games that teachers can use to help students get to know each other at the beginning of the school year. The games include having students line up by birth month, throwing "snowballs" with facts about themselves for partners to find, show and tell with personal items, writing letters to the teacher and each other, drawing and guessing self-portraits, observing and guessing changes in partners, mingling and asking each other questions on index cards, pictionary with things they like, and taking turns asking yes/no questions to guess nouns stuck on their forehead. The games are meant to encourage interaction and for students to learn things about their classmates.
Ice breaking games for students
- 1. Ice Breaking Games for students TeacherLiviaDobrescu
- 2. Birthday Lineup Call out any month of the year and have all students born in that month come up to the front of the room. It is up to the students to decide who stands first, second, etc., so they are standing from the first day of the month to the last day of the month. Now call out another month (don't call the months in order), and have those students try to position themselves correctly by day and by where they should stand as an entire month. This is a great way to get kids working together and knowing each other. Once all of the kids have lined up, test them to see if they are correct.
- 3. The Snowball Activity Have students write three things about themselves on a piece of paper. Then have them crumble up the paper to resemble a snowball. Let the students have a snowball fight for about one minute. Now everyone grabs one of the snowballs and has to try and find the person who wrote on it. Once they find their partner, they have to bring that person up in front of the class and explain what they learned about their new friend with the three facts written on the piece of paper.
- 4. Show and Tell Don't forget about this old time favorite part of class. Instruct students to bring in something that they cherish, or just want to share with the class. Give each student a turn to come up and tell about the item that they brought in. This way the class will get to know each other and something that makes each student happy.
- 5. Letter Writing At the beginning of the year, write a short letter about yourself as the teacher. Tell the students where you live, what your hobbies are, and if you have any children, pets, etc. Hand out your letter to each student in your class and ask them to write you back with similar information about themselves.
- 6. Self-Portrait Have your students draw themselves. After they have done this, collect the papers and hang them up for the whole class to see. Now have students try to guess who the artists was for each picture.
- 7. The Observation Game Line up the students in two lines facing each other. If there is an odd number of students, you can play the game, too. Give students 30 seconds to look each other over really good, paying attention to all details about their partner. The students in one line now turn facing the other way while the other line of students changes something about themselves. For example, a girl might take off a hair bow, or a boy might un-tuck his shirt. When the kids in the first line turn back around, they have to guess what their partner changed. Now switch and let the first line make the change and the second line guess the difference.
- 8. The Mingle Game Give each student an index card. Have them write a question that they would like to ask the other students in the class. Examples might include, "What is your favorite song?" or "What is your favorite sport?" Next, have the students get up and walk around the room. When you say, "stop," students have to stand beside the person closest to them and ask the question that is on their own card. Both students have to answer the questions. Now have them mingle again and meet a new person.
- 9. Icebreaker Pictionary Have the students draw pictures about what they like to do, what their favorite foods are, and what is their favorite subject in school. Have each student come up and show their pictures to the class. See if the students can guess what each student drew that tells a little bit about themselves. For instance, if a student draws a yellow M, can anyone guess that she likes McDonalds?
- 10. The "What Am I?" Game Have the students get into a circle. Give each student a post-it note. Have each person write a noun on the post-it note. Then stick the post-it on the forehead of the person standing to right of them with the noun showing. Now have student take a turn to ask the group a "yes/no" question that will help them guess the noun on their forehead. If they do not guess correctly, the person on their right gets to ask a question. Keep going until all of the noun have been guessed, or your time limit has expired.
- 11. Be creative! Share your ideas too!