These classroom icebreakers are enjoyable teacher-approved activities and games that address all your school and classroom needs! We recommend the following icebreakers for students of all ages. We have teachers on our staff of writers and they have recommended these for class teaching purposes. Give them a try and we think you’ll agree that your students will love them.
Classroom Icebreakers for Students
Breaking the Ice / Introduction Games
Breaking the ice is useful for the beginning of a class period or toward the beginning of a semester when students don’t know each other well! Introduction and breaking-the-Ice games can dramatically transform the dynamics of your classroom, making it easier for students to share their opinions or to get along with other classmates. Sometimes you just need a good sharing or introduction oriented game to help students break the ice. Try the following recommended activities and let us know how well they worked for your classroom:
- Art Effects (Drawing) – A fun drawing oriented game!
- The Bests (Get-to-know-you) – A rapid fire game to see who is the “best” at various tasks.
- Blanket Game (Get-to-know-you) – Quickly identify someone’s name as you drop a large blanket!
- Candy Introductions (Get-to-know-you) – A simple game to allow people to introduce themselves, using candy.
- Catch the Ball (Get-to-know-you) – Another simple game of introductions, tossing a ball around the room.
- Categories or Similarities Game (Get-to-know-you) – A game to help people get to know each others’ similarities!
- Collaborative Drawing (Teambuilding) – An interesting collaborative drawing game.
- Energy Game (Talking, Active) – A game that grows in intensity over time.
- Extreme Rock, Paper, Scissors (Active) – A twist on the classic rock paper scissors game!
- Fabulous Flags (Get-to-know-you) – A clever way to involve drawing flags with symbols of what is important to a person.
- Funny Icebreaker Stories (Get-to-know-you) – A silly sharing game to get folks laughing!
- Great Wind Blows (Get-to-know-you, Active) – Also known as Big Wind Blows, a game similar to musical chairs!
- Icebreaker Questions (Get-to-know-you, Teambuilding) – Try out these questions to help people get to know each other better.
- Identity Circles (Get-to-know-you) – A deeper get-to-know-you game to share the values that make up your identity and how you prioritize them in your life
- Interview Game (Get-to-know-you) – Interview your partner for a few minutes and then share this with the rest of the group.
- Late Arrivals Game (Party, Talking) – A British game of introducing new arrivals to a party.
- Lineup Game (Get-to-know-you) – Work together as a team to arrange your team in a line based on a quality that is not obviously apparent.
- Lost on a Deserted Island (Get-to-know-you, Teambuilding) – Share who or what you would bring if stranded on a deserted island.
- Memorable Catchy Names (Get-to-know-you) – Nervous Nancy? Fabulous Fred? A simple game of introducing yourself with another word descriptor.
- More Good Icebreaker Questions (Get-to-know-you, Teambuilding) – Additional good icebreaker questions to use when you want people to share about themselves.
- Name Aerobics (Get-to-know-you, Talking, Active)
- Never Have I Ever (Get-to-know-you) – A game that lets people get a sense of each others’ experiences!
- Paper Airplanes/Name Planes (Get-to-know-you)
- Personal Trivia Baseball (Get-to-know-you) – A game of trying to answer increasingly difficult facts about someone.
- Picture Whispers (Drawing) – Like Pictionary mixed with the Telephone Game.
- Shoe Pile Mingle (Get-to-know-you, Teambuilding) – Slightly smelly, but lots of fun!
- Song Sync (Get-to-know-you, Talking)
- Sorts and Mingle (Get-to-know-you)
- String Game (Get-to-know-you) – A simple game that uses string to help people get to know each other better!
- Superlative Game (Get-to-know-you) – Biggest! Strongest! Fastest!
- Tall Tales (Talking) – A story continuation game in which each person will tell three sentences of a story and end with the word “suddenly.”
- Time Hop (Get-to-know-you) – Explore different periods throughout each others’ lives.
- Two Truths and a Lie (Get-to-know-you) – The classic game of trying to guess which is the lie among three statements.
- Unique and Shared (Get-to-know-you, Teambuilding)
- Who Am I? (Mingling) – Great for parties! Folks mingle around the room and try to guess who is the name on their back.
- Who Done It? (Get-to-know-you)
Sharing/Opinion Games
Some games help students to start expressing their opinions on various issues, to share personal stories, or to have a voice in the classroom. Try these activities to get things rolling for your learners to get them more engaged.
Connecting Stories (Get-to-know-you, Teambuilding)
Extremes: Where Do You Stand? (Get-to-know-you)
Four Corners (Get-to-know-you)
Story Starters (Get-to-know-you)
What I Would Have Done (Get-to-know-you)
Spelling/Word Games
These games are all about spelling or using words. They can be challenging but also a lot of fun! These might work really well for English Language Arts settings — or even for foreign language/ESL courses.
Ghost Game (Talking)
Word Associations (Talking)
Word Chains (Memory)
Assignments / Outside-of-Class Activities
The following activities can be useful as a larger task outside of the class period. Some of these teambuilding exercises can be helpful to support team dynamics and cultivate better chemistry. Note that some of these require time outside of class in order to achieve best results — plan accordingly.
Bigger and Better (Active, Teambuilding)
Defend the Egg (Teambuilding)
Photo Scavenger Hunt (Active, Teambuilding)
