posted
I'm looking for icebreakers for a small group of college students (under ten) for the Rotaract Club at my school. Everything I can find online seems to be for larger groups of people or requires physical contact. I tried two truths and a lie at the last meeting and it was a miserable failure. I thought hatrack might have some better ideas.
Here's generally what I'm looking for: -Get them up and moving around the room. -Doesn't require physical contact -Takes no more than fifteen minutes -Will make them forget their college student cynicism and have fun. -Not the human scavenger hunt.
I know this is rather specific criteria, but does anyone have any ideas?
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
There was a thread on something similar awhile back. When I needed icebreakers in February I searched that thread and then searched the internet for lds sites for singles wards where they often have online lists of icebreakers. I found tons of suggestions.
I think I hate the activity icebreakers more than other types of icebreakers but I could be wrong.
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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Two Truths and a Lie. It won't get them moving around the room, but it will get discussions moving around the room. That is hands down my favorite Ice Breaker.
Lindsay just pointed out that you tried this already. That's what I get for just skimming a post. My brain just shrank 3 sizes.
[ October 21, 2006, 11:09 AM: Message edited by: Ben ]
Posts: 1572 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Here's one I've done several times: (I think it's called "I've never")
get everybody to stand in a circle one person stands in the middle the person in the middle says "My name is ___ and I've never..." and says something that they have never done everyone that HAS done it runs around and switches places
It's a good way to get everyone moving and learn interesting things you have in common.
Posts: 4174 | Registered: Sep 2003
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All I can think of are theater games, and I don't know if they're so much icebreakers as ensemble makers. And I can't think of any that would work for groups under ten. I teach high school students, usually in groups of 20 or more. And they're all theater people.
I'll keep thinking and get back to you.
Posts: 511 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Hehehe, we have an alcoholic drink here in NZ called icebreaker. It only comes in kegs. Its an alternative to beer kegs. Very easy to drink. It would probably do all the things on your list but I'm guessing thats not the kind of "icebreaker" you are looking for. Posts: 315 | Registered: Jun 2002
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Pass around a roll of toilet paper and tell the group to "Take as much as you think you need." Don't tell them any more than that. Once everyone has taken some tp tell them that for each square, they have to say something about themselves. You'd be surprised how much toilet paper some people will take.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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We played an interesting game as an icebreaker at an event I helped with registration for yesterday.
Pass out fun-size bags of M&Ms (or opaque bags with a small number of M&Ms in them, or whatever). Have a sheet of paper with different sentences on it in the different colors of M&Ms -- for instance, ours had 'Tell us about a famous person you would like to meet', 'Tell a funny story about you and technology' (its an IT related thing -- http://www.cs.indiana.edu/bringiton/ ), 'Give an example of a place you want to travel someday', that sort of thing, and a wildcard color.
Go around the group and have each person take out one M&M and say whatever's appropriate for that color.
This worked quite well in groups of 4 or 5.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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What about the tower building thing? Each team builds a tower with paper and sellotape and straws, and whatever team builds the tallest tower that can balance a [insert object; I've used keyrings mostly] on the top wins. It can be quite good fun.
Two Truths and a Lie is fun as well (I probably think this mainly because I am fantastic at it), and you could add rules to it that would get people moving around, like having certain penalties for getting caught out in the lie.
Tape a piece of paper onto everyone's back on which is written some famous person. Then everyone mills around the room asking everyone else yes/no questions about their person until they find out who it is.
Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000
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Questionnaires. You have to find somebody in the room that fits each question, such as "Have you been to a foreign country?" and "Have you been shot at?" Sometimes these are arranged into a bingo square, and you win if you get a line of 5.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Fyfe's last one (the taped name on the back) is the only icebreaker I haven't hated with all my might. It gets folks moving around and interacting, but it's not instantly personal the way so many seem designed to be.
Icarus's isn't bad either, for other reasons.
Posts: 628 | Registered: Nov 1999
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We did one at VAD two years ago that I thought was really interesting... I tried to bring it to BPP this summer, but Freund said it was too complicated for the kids. Here's how it works:
You all walk around the room, filling the space. Then, everyone silently picks two other people in the room, without telling who they are. (They don't know the object of the game yet, when picking their people.) After they've each chosen two people, they are told that they must form an equilateral triangle with those two people as the other two corners. Of course, the minute one person moves, it tips everyone's equilateral triangles and it's a domino effect... but it IS possible to do! We did it in about 10 minutes, maybe a little bit more. It's like a puzzle. It's really fun! And you feel very proud once it's solved.
Edit: If you want it more as a get-to-know-you type of thing, you can make them say their names once it's solved, and "check them," so to speak, both on the names and on everyone's positions.
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Eruve Nandiriel: Here's one I've done several times: (I think it's called "I've never")
get everybody to stand in a circle one person stands in the middle the person in the middle says "My name is ___ and I've never..." and says something that they have never done everyone that HAS done it runs around and switches places
It's a good way to get everyone moving and learn interesting things you have in common.
I've played something like this, only we did the opposite - we said something we've done that we don't think anyone else has done. Before we started, we each got the same number of cheerios as the number of people, and each time someone said something they've done, if we didn't do that thing, we threw one cheerio in the center (we were in a circle).
We had people who had never eaten sauerkraut, one person who had eaten brain tacos (my sister!), a person who studied cosmetology in Italy, one who doesn't know how to drive, one who has met the president, etc. There were very few things that more than one person had done - the sauerkraut thing was one of them.
We didn't keep very good track of the cheerios - I think the purpose was to see who had any left at the end. We ended up going around again without cheerios, because we thought it was fun. The age range of the group was from about 17 to 60+ and it was all women.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Yes, yes, yes, Apples to Apples! Oh how I love that game! It's the best game ever! I love that game to pieces. It's the most fun if everyone lobbies for their card with the choosing person.
Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000
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