Icebreakers APE, MAN, GIRL (like rock paper scissors but better!) Have people pair off. Then, when the signal is given each person strikes a pose like an ape, man, or girl. Be sure to demonstrate what each looks like ahead of time (and you can decide that!). The ape beats the girl, man beats the ape, the girl gets the man. Eliminate the losers and pair the winners until you get a champion. There's an icebreaker I played that was hilarious. You have a group of people (15 or something). Circle 14 chairs around 1 person, and have 14 people on the outside (so you have 1 person in the center, surrounded by 14 chairs, surrounded by 14 people). Object of the game is to NOT let the person in the center get a seat. Play music. Stop music. Everyone runs to a chair. (Maybe get more than one person inside, like 1/5 of a group) Fruit Basket Turn Over- seat players in a circle. One person stands in the center. Each player is given the name of a fruit. The person in the middle calls out the name of two fruits. The two people must quickly change seats. The person in the middle also tries to reach one of the seats. The one left standing then calls the name of two other fruits. He or she may also call "fruit basket turnover" and everyone must change seats. Digging game- The members sit in a circle of chairs and there is one person standing and does not have a chair. The person in the middle asks a question, like "who has brown hair?" and everyone who does has to get up and switch seats. The person in the middle has to go and find a seat, which in turn will leave somebody else in the middle without a chair to ask a question. The catch is that the people changing seats (this applies to each individual round) cannot move to the seat on either side of them, or if they get up and can't find a seat, they cannot return to the seat where they just sat. This is a great way to "dig" up some information, on people you don't know. Duck, Duck, Goose Group sits, ducking person goes around saying a certain personality trait or likes or anything about him/herself. If a person says a trait and says goose and the person sitting has the same trait the two people must run around. (good with small group and non-violent people) Name Game Small group sits (10 people). First person starts by using adjective starting with the first letter of their first name (E.G. Clumsy Clara, Happy Hannah). The following person
must then repeat the first person’s adjective and name and add their on. Eventually the last person will have to repeat everything. The team can help! Non Verbal Birthday Line Up Get everyone to line up according to their birth month/zodiac without talking. Balloon Bust- has all players tie one balloon around each of their ankles. The object is to burst your opponent's balloons while keeping yours whole. Caterpillar Race- line up behind each other bent at the waist and holding the ankles of the person in front of you. Try to move forward as a team. If someone looses the ankle grip, the caterpillar must stop until everyone is intact. (Do this to determine who gets to eat first. Line up groups, go down when end, disassemble then back person becomes front and race back to starting line.) If you love me baby smile- Everyone sits in a circle, and one person goes up to somebody in the group and tries to make them smile by saying, "if you love me baby, smile" and they are not allowed touching the person at all. They may make funny faces or whatnot. If the person does not smile or laugh, they will reply, "I love you baby, but I just can't smile". And if the person succeeds, the person they made smile moves on, and if they lose, they have to go to another person. Animal Ball game- everyone stands in a circle and bounces a ball to somebody else, and has a five second limit to do so. But before bouncing the ball they must say a name of an animal. When somebody repeats an animal name, they are out of the game. It eventually ends up being a competition between two people, and then there's a winner. As a prize, you can give them a chocolate bar, or something else. Criminal Dealings Design a system for secretly identifying the "criminal" and the "cop." We used a deck of cards. You only need enough cards so each player may have one card. One card needs to be a jack--the criminal, and one needs to be an ace--the cop. All of the other cards should be below ten in rank. Let each person draw and keep a card, without showing it to anyone. The criminal needs to recruit other criminals by winking at them, but without getting caught by the cop. Any person who sees a wink is to wait a few seconds, so as not to be obvious, and then say, "I committed a crime." That person then turns in his card and is out of the game. Play continues until the criminal recruits all players without being caught by the cop, or the cop identifies the criminal. If the cop misidentifies the criminal, he loses the game.
Silent Alphabet Name Game We could do the whole - split up girls and guys and see which gender arranges themselves in alphabetical order according to their first name without talking! Paper Snowball Fight You get a sheet of white paper. Write something about yourself on it. Then scrunch it up into a ball, and then have a "Snowball fight". Get yourself another white scrunched up piece of paper and then find the person it belongs to.
GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER GAMES
20 Questions Pass around an envelope full of questions, each person answers one. Some sample questions are: What city are you from? Ice cream flavour? Favourite food? A foreign country you’ve visited? Last movie they saw? First time you stepped foot on campus Favourite sport at they Olympics? The nicest car you’ve driven Favourite TV show? Favourite school supply? School subject they hate? Beach Ball Questions On a beach ball write in permanent pen several questions (Like the ones above in “20 Questions”). Sit in a circle with students. Toss the ball out, whoever catches it must answer the question his/her/ right thumb touches. Ask students to say their name before answering. M&Ms (or Jelly Beans) Pass a bag of M&Ms around. Encourage them to take some, but not eat them yet. Then go around the circle and have them say one thing about themselves, questions they have about SFU, etc. for each M&M they have. String Game Sit the group in a circle. One person holds a ball of string and states the names of everyone who previously held the string. Variation 1: first go in a circle, then try to pass the string around in a order that everyone must remember when they state the names. Variation 2: use several balls of string / bean bags in one circle so there is lots of action
Ball Toss / Group Juggle Have three tennis balls / bean bags / tossable objects handy. Get the group in a circle. The Facilitator tosses 1 ball to someone in the group whose name they know saying their name and then the other person’s name (e.g. Sandy to John). John (person who receives the ball) tosses ball to someone whose name he knows (e.g. John to Phil). Phil tosses to someone whose name he knows and so on, saying both names all the way around the circle. The ball is tossed to each person one time only until everyone in the circle gets it and all names have been said. THEN, facilitator starts again and tosses the balls to the same person (Sandy to John to Phil, etc.) only this time with 2 balls in succession (not at the same time) saying both names, both times. Balls get tossed to the same people they were originally tossed to; first one ball, then the next, all the way around the circle stopping when they get back to the facilitator. THEN, facilitator starts again only with all three balls this time. Saying names each time, all three balls get tossed, in succession, in the same order until they get back to the facilitator. By the time there are three balls going, it gets pretty chaotic and fun. By now all names have been said so many times everyone should have a pretty good idea of who’s who and they are pretty warmed up and ready to go. If someone drops a ball, simply give them a chance to chase it down and just pick up where you left off-no need to start again. First Job Have participants introduce themselves, sharing their name and something they learned on their first paying job. As a variation, get them to share their first job coupled with their career aspiration. Introducing… Have the group split into pairs and introduce each other. This pair now finds another pair and each individual introduces the other to the new pair. Now a group of four finds another group of four and everyone introduces their original partner to the group. Keep going until you are one big group. Spice it up by asking pairs to find out specific things (favourite colour, major, city of birth, etc.) about their partner. Find someone who Make up sheets of paper that have a list of characteristics. Students must go around the room getting people to sign their sheet. For example, find someone who: has been to Ireland, likes sushi, drives a convertible, is from Alberta, plays a musical instrument. Note: You need paper and pens – plan in advance!
Names & Adjectives Ask each participant to take a few moments to think of an adjective that starts with the same first letter as their first name (e.g. “Jumping Jason, Beautiful Brianne”). Start by modeling it yourself. Then move around the group asking each person to state their name/adjective combination. Additionally, participants can be asked to share “where they work,” or other pertinent information. At various points during introductions, or at the end, ask for volunteers to remember each of the names, with adjectives, that have been volunteered thus far. Reinforce the efforts and successes of volunteers. Guess Who? Have each person write 5 significant things on a card about themselves with NO NAMES. Hand them in. Mix them up. Then give each person a card (can’t have your own). Each person search for the card’s author. Once you find a candidate for the card’s author, do NOT show that person the card & ask ONLY indirect questions to gain answers (I.E. “I have 3 brothers”, can ask “Tell me about your siblings”, NOT “How many brothers do you have?”). When you find the card’s author, introduce yourself. Two Truths and a Lie Give each individual a 3X5 card and instruct them to write 3 statements about themselves: one of the statements should be false while 2 should be true. Explain that the goal is to fool people about which is the lie. Allow 5 minutes to write statements; then have each person say their name and read their 3 statements and have the group guess the lie. Award a prize to the individual who makes the most correct guesses. More Icebreakers Magical Banana This is a word association game. Sit in a circle, one person starts with any word (ex. Yellow). The person next to him/her needs to say the first word that comes to mind (ex. Banana), then the next person says their word (ex. Sundae) and so on. Each person must say the word quickly to keep a rhythm. The group can decide if there is no logical association. Human Scrabble Hand out index cards with a letter of the alphabet on it―one per student. Give the group 3 minutes to form groups of 5 or more letters that spell a word. If they form a word that is not in the dictionary, they must come up with a definition. Time is key –
don’t give them too much. Ask members of the group to introduce themselves when they are showing the group their word. A-Z Game Groups can compete against other groups to find objects that start with each letter of the alphabet. Have one group member fill out a sheet with A-Z down the side to list all of their items. Items cannot be used more than once. Egg, chicken, super-hero Play rock, paper, scissors with a partner. If you win, you become a chicken. If you lose, you move down a step. Famous Fannies Attach the name of a famous person to everyone’s back. Each person asks others questions to figure out who they are. You can also add value to this game by having everyone write their contact info on each others’ backs. Here are some sample famous people: Simon Fraser, John A Macdonald, Michael Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Pamela Anderson, Jean Chretien, Bill Gates, Queen Elizabeth. Human knot Everyone stands in a circle and shakes hands with two other hands. Once everyone is tangled, try to untangle the knot back into a circle without releasing hands. Time yourselves to see how fast you can do it. Line-up One person calls out a category and everybody arranges themselves according to that order. Categories can include: birth date, shoe size, money in wallet, first name, last name, phone number, student number Laugh Challenge Get in groups of 2 or three and see who laughs first Nonsense words In small groups, have a list of nonsense words that each person tries to use in a sentence Object Story Pass around a bag of cool objects. Create a story that incorporates each object, each person adds 30 seconds to the story with a new object.
Wacky Scavenger Hunt Create a list of things that people can identify with (e.g. My initials are the same as Homer Simpson. I have hiked the Grouse Grind more than once). Everyone writes down a new person’s name beside each item. Trivia Questions Here are some business-related trivia questions you can throw into any of the games. Who was Simon Fraser? –Fur Trade explorer What are 4 concentrations in SFU Business? What is the name of a major accounting firm? (e.g. KPMG, Deloitte & Touche) What is the URL to the BMP website? What does MOS stand for? How many credits does a BBA take? -120 How many credits is considered full-time? -9 Where will the MBA program be moving to? -downtown