ICE BREAKERS

compiled by Dave Hall

EVERYBODY UP
Purpose: To work together as a team and solve problems or to come to an
agreement as a group on the best way to solve that problem.

Using this cooperative exercise is a useful way to introduce the concept of initiative problems.

Ask two people of the approximately the same size to sit on the ground (gym floor) facing one another so that the
bottoms (soles) of their shoes are opposed, knees bent, and grasping each other’s hands. From this stylized sitting
position, ask them to duo to try to pull themselves into an upright standing position. If the pair is successful (most are),
ask them to seek another partner and try three people, then four, etc., until the entire group makes an attempt. Criteria for
a successful attempt are: (1) Hands grasped so that an electrical current could pass through the group. (2) foot contact
with the same electrical setup. (3) All derrieres off the ground at about the same time.

Something that began as a simple cooperative stunt soon becomes an initiative problem that includes the entire group.

An expanding group will functionally find that the seemingly logical circular configuration of bodies cannot be continued
beyond 8 people or so. A change of thinking (initiative ) must be employed to come up with a solution that allows large
numbers (50 people) to complete the problem.

If an adrenaline-pumped group of 8 or 10 jogs over you, after having stumbled and jerked to a tenuous standing position,
and breathlessly asks,”Did we do it right?” - need I say what your answer should be ? Are they high? Yes. Do they feel
good about their effort and themselves? Yes. Did they do it right?

An alternate or additional way to present this problem is to ask the participants to sit back-to-back and try to stand as a
pair, a trio, etc. Do not allow interlocked arms for safety reasons (shoulder dislocation possibilities).

HUMAN CAMERA
Purpose : Trust activity which allows two people to gain trust in one another. Once trust is
established this will lead to some exemplary teamwork.

Here’s a useful trick for outdoor education teachers or interested educators that I saw used at an O.E.A. conference at
Bradford Woods in Indiana. The teaching theme is to demonstrate how you can use a partner as a camera. After having
made appropriate comments about how a camera is like a human eye, ask your partner to close his/her eyes, then lead that
person to a spot where there is an interesting object you would like to record on their retinal film. Using the human
camera’s body as an infinitely mobile tripod, set up your partner’s head (the camera) in such a way that their closed eyes
are directly in front of the chosen subject. Gently pull their ear lobe (or push on the acromion process) to activate the
shutter. At this encouragement, the “camera” opens and closes their eye lids (shutter) very quickly in order to record the
scene. Lead your partner to a few more photographic possibilities and then talk about what you two have jointly re-
corded.

Vary the scenes from close-ups to distant landscapes. Switch roles after you have talked about the experience with your
partner or as a group. I think you can easily recognize that this is not the only a shared experience of high quality, but
also a trust sequence (unselfconscious touch, no-sight maneuvering) that leads to good feelings and a useful pairs
rapport.
NIRSA Natural High
nirsa.org/nnh
YOUR ADD
Purpose: Group should mingle and select several partners. Creates spontaneous reactions and
gets people warmed up.

This simple, no-prop game has so many good things going it that you should try it right now. Grab a partner - husband,
roommate, wife, sibling, anyone with a few fingers (10 digits are not necessary: in fact, amputees have an advantage).

Tell them to put their hands behind their backs (command is SET!), and on the word SHOW! both players, standing vis-a-
vis, thrust their hands forward with from 0-10 fingers extended. The first player to come up with a calculated total for all
fingers is the champion. Example - 1st player shows 8 fingers, 2nd shows 2 fists; total is 8. Also try subtracting and
multiplying, using a third player’s hand finger total as the subractor of multiplier.

If your group is involved in an extended workshop or retreat (More than one day), this game can emphasize spontaneous
interaction between people. Whenever two people approach one another, one can say SET!, which is all that’s needed to
initiate a quick YOUR ADD contest, leading to further conversion, maybe friendship. further involvement - perhaps even
marriage, financial commitments, pets, two cars, wall-to-wall carpeting, kids - what more can you ask of a simple game?

CREATE A MONSTER
Purpose: Involves team work building producing independent participants. For example, leaders,
followers, organizer, action takers, or planners. What steps were involved as a group to obtain
the goal.

A team is organized depending on the size of the group at hand. Split the teams up into equal numbers. The rules of the
game are presented first to the groups. Game consists of five rules. (1) Must be connected (2) Must be able to move 5
steps (3) Must make a animal noise (4) Can not stack people on top of one another (5) Each team has to place a certain
number of feet and a certain number of hands on the ground. For instance, if there are 3 teams of seven people each team
will be given different numbers to make different arrangements of monsters. Team 1 will have 5 feet and 7 hands on the
ground, team 2 will have 7 feet and 5 hands on the ground, and team 3 will have 9 hands and 3 feet on the ground. Now
with the goals at hand the teams will plan and arrange themselves to follow the suggested rules.

Botticelli
Object is to be able to identify a certain character in the game by asking questions that can be answered yes or no. For
example, everyone is sitting in a circle. You give everyone a blank piece of paper with a marker or pen and ask them to
select some group of fantasy figures, famous people, movie stars, cartoon characters, etc., for the theme to carry through-
out the game. Then ask people to look around the room, pick a particular fantasy figure, and decide who in the circle they
are going to put that character’s name on.

Everyone writes their character or famous person down on a piece of paper. They have a piece of tape, and when you say
go, they get up and go to that person and try to put this name on the back of the person they’ve selected. However, it’s
first come, first serve. So, let’s say I’ve selected a big, tough-looking guy in the room to be Popeye, but when I get there
he has already been selected as someone else, so I quickly turn and try to find another person that I think resembles
Popeye but I can’t do that. So I find a petite young woman who is the only person left with no tag on her back, so I put
the character Popeye on her back. This is what causes the game to be somewhat funny.

Then we walk around the room and people look at our back and see whether we are Bugs Bunny or Porky Pig or Popeye
or Conan the Barbarian or Ronald Reagan or whoever. We ask yes or no questions. For example, “Am I a cartoon
character?” If I get a yes, I get to continue to ask questions, if I get a no, then I have to move on and talk to somebody
else. The object is to try to quickly discover who you are, take your name off the back, and put it on the front of you and
then you are only a person that assists others with their yes-no questions so that everyone finally determines who they
are within the group. Toward the end, it gets particularly funny because people have trouble sometimes identifying
themselves. And, it’s a good way to break the ice. People can talk to one another afterwards.

Another way to do it which speeds things up is to have pre-selected characters that you put on people’s backs as they
walk in the door. And then they just go to town trying to discover who they are. When playing with international
groups, e.g. the International Student Society or some group like that, you could pick famous world leaders. This group,
for example, seems to be very politically astute, so current political world leaders would be a group that they know quite a
bit about. American freshman, on the other hand, would be stumped by famous world leaders.

Musical Partners
Select five different types of music: eg., classical, country, reggae, Muzak, Rock ‘n Roll. Play one style for 1 min. 30 sec. I
find a stranger that I do not know and have a conversation about ourselves: who we are, name, where from, what’s your
major, what are your interests, etc. So I have this stranger that I am having a 1 min. 30 sec. conversation with while music
is playing, let’s say it’s classical. This becomes my classical music partner. So, I associate the person I’m talking to, their
name, with the music which is playing while we’re having our conversation. The music stops. The facilitator says,
switch. I find a different partner; preferably someone I do not know at all. Let’s say the next set of music is country and
western. I have another conversation for 1 min 30 sec. I do this a total of five times, with the five different style of music.
I have met five new people.

At this point, we play the same five styles of music, in a different order and for 30 seconds. I have to run and find my
partner for each kind of music. This time we have a 30-second conversation. This is relatively quick. We do this for each
of the five kinds of music. After that round, the order changes again, we play the styles of music again, this time for 20
seconds. Again, I find each partner associated with the style of music. At this point it gets a little silly, because we are
really moving fast. We hear the music, we find the person, we run across, we say “hey, how are you?” It takes about 20
seconds to do that. The music changes again, and we’re off. At this point people are laughing and it gets really silly.

In order for this to work, you have to have a house P.A. system or a cassette player that is played through a microphone.
A regular boom box will not work for this type of exercise because the conversation with people in the room (I’ve done
this with as few as 20 and as many as 150) is too loud a volume for the music to be heard unless it is over a microphone or
PA. At the end of the session, you have met five people that you really know something about.

True-False Cards
People take a 3x5 or 5x7 card and a marker or pen and write something true about themselves and something false about
themselves. Or, they could write two things true about themselves and one thing false about themselves. You go around
the group in just sort of a mingle. You introduce yourself to people and they have to guess which is true and which is
false. It creates some pretty interesting conversations and it’s a good way to “break the ice.”

Pairs Tag
This is another game which I enjoy; especially after there has been some kind of introductory type of game that’s been
played. You are playing a game of tag (It/Not It) with one other person so there are obviously tag-backs. I tag you, and I
turn and run, you chase me, you catch me, you tag me, you turn and run, I catch you, etc. However, with a group of 75
people in the room, each playing only tag against one partner, it gets a little crazy. You certainly have to warn people
about safety so they don’t run into each other. What I usually do is demonstrate the game at full speed and then when
they get the drift of how it works I tell them that one other rule in order to keep it safe is that they have to walk heel-to-toe
fashion, obviously slowing down the speed with which they can move through the game. This usually can become a
very interesting and funny game.
Have you Ever
Another good one. People are sitting in a circle. Everyone has a chair except the person who is it, standing in the center.
They have to try to ask a question of “have you ever.” For example, have you ever climbed a mountain over 10,000 feet.
Anyone who has would get up and move to an empty seat. So, if four people get up they try to exchange seats as quickly
as possible. The person who asked the question, and it must be something that is true for them, is trying to quickly gain a
seat, leaving one other person without a seat and they become the new IT. You can either try to stump people, revealing a
little about yourself by saying “have you ever trekked the Great Wall of China?” or you can ask simple questions like
“have you ever fallen off of a bicycle?” when everyone would get up and move as quickly as possible. So, there are a
variety of ways of playing.

Yes-No Pileup
A variation on “Have you Ever” where anyone can ask a question and if you can answer yes to the question you move
one space to your right and sit in that chair. If you cannot answer yes to the question, you stay seated in the chair where
you are. This means somebody may be coming to sit on your lap from the seat to your left. Sometimes you get three and
four people sitting in sort of a lap-style game on top of you. Then, when they ask the next question to go one space to
the right by answering yes, they peel off one at a time sit down and you end up on top. It creates some very interesting
combinations. Physical touching really does reveal something about people and it breaks the ice so that people can then
feel comfortable talking about other things.

Some references for these type of games

The Bottomless Bag Again and The Bottomless Bag, both by Karl Rohnke from Project Adventure, are very
good sources for these kinds of games. There are also a number of games, called initiative games, which are
physical problem-solving activities. Both of these books reveal those styles of games and are a very easy
resource.

To order:

1-800-228-0810
Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company
4050 Westmark Drive
P.O. Box 1840
Dubuque, IA 52044-1840