Ice Breakers and Activities
What Are They
We’ve all done ice breakers, they are the boring, or annoying activities we are almost
forced to do at the beginning of meetings or workshops. This being said, a good
inclusive ice breaker can really bring a group together. Ice breakers don’t have to be
physical activities, they can be thought provoking, creative, debating, and forge the
beginnings of friendships.
Working Contract
The working contract sets out the groups expectations about how they want to work
and act. This is an activity that young people and adults should equally be involved
in. The group will need to come up statements or requests that can be scribed onto a
board/flipchart and displayed where everyone can see it. These are NOT rules.
A few examples could be:
- Keep swearing to a minimum.
- Respect each other’s views and opinions.
- Consider individual people’s needs
Tip: avoid negative language such as “no” and “don’t”
Ideas for Ice Breakers and Activities
There are two great places to find ideas for ice breakers.
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The internet and web pages such as YouTube will have thousands of
examples and tutorials for a variety of different ice breakers. Make sure you
pick something appropriate.
Young People will most likely have done ice breakers before and could be
given the task of leading the activity.
Round Robyn purpose – a quick introduction exercise.
The group takes it in turns to state their name. This can be extended as much or as
little as you like.
As well as their names individuals could also tell the group where they live, what
school they went too, their favourite cartoon character, and so on.
Questions purpose – to dig a little deeper and find out more about people.
Just asking simple generic questions such as “if you could learn to play any
instrument, what would you pick?” or “where in the world would you like to travel?”
can spark conversation and be a perfectly good ice breaker and there are lots of
ways it can be done.
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Using an ice breaker or question ball that can be thrown around the group.
Asking would you rather questions, for example “would you rather have hands
for feet or feet for hands”.
Pick a number between 1 and 10 then ask the question assigned to that
number.
Create a town purpose – to encourage teem working and creativity
Split everyone into small groups who can feed back their work at the end, or do the
activity in a larger group.
Create a town based on some basic questions and needs.
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Town’s name
The Mayor’s name.
How many people live there?
What is the town’s crest or symbol?
What is the town famous for?
What is the town’s biggest export?
What is the town motto?
The group can get as creative as they like, using large paper and pens.
Sinking Ship purpose – To get kore in-depth ideas and challenge opinons.
The group is given a list of 20 people who are on an imaginary boat which is sinking.
The group have to decide which 15 people they will save, and the 5 remaining
people who will be left to drown.
The list of 20 people can include celebrities, world leaders, children, people with
disabilities, members of the medical profession, and so on. This activity has the
potential to create debate and last for some time. You could put a time limit on the
activity by explaining that the ship will sink in 10 minutes.