What are Ice Breakers?
Ice breakers are an effective way of starting a training session, classroom lesson or team-building event. In a teaching context, they are usually an activity or game, that helps people to get to know each other before the body of the lesson commences.
Keep reading and click on the links to get your free resources below!
Why Use Ice Breakers?
Ice breakers are such an important part of your workplace / classroom teaching strategy. Especially if you are dealing with learners that don't know each other, or don't know you (as the teacher) very well. Even if they do know each other, they have real value, as they can discover things about the person next to them that they had no idea about. All great stuff for breaking down stereotypes and making people think more about people that they don't engage with normally.
During my time as a workplace trainer ice breakers were my favorite tool to get people over their nerves, laughing and talking.
As an example, I would walk into a room full of 8 to 10 workers who would generally not meet my gaze. If I could read minds, I suspect that their thoughts would be somewhere along the lines of "What does this white, middle class, female think she can teach me that will help me in my job. I'm here because my boss told me to come - I'll just do my time." I loved the challenge of breaking down their stereotype of me and it all started with the ice-breaker activities, where we got to know just a little bit more about each other - they were often surprised at some of my experiences and as a result they started to trust me, which lead to better learning outcomes all round.
As teachers / facilitators we want people to be in a relaxed state so that they are most open to learning new ideas, and confident enough to participate in discussions. A good ice breaker will put them in that state and set the tone for an engaging, fun and informative learning session.
You can get creative and make up your own ice-breakers, or you can download some of the free ice-breaker activities that I've tried and tested below.
What are examples of Ice Breakers?
1. Two Truths and a Lie (2 Truths and 1 Lie)
This can be played with a small or large group.
Ask your learners to write down (and keep to themselves) three statements about themselves. Two of the statements will be true and one of the statements will be a lie.
Once that's done, nominate someone to start the game. They can read out their statements, or if available write them up on a whiteboard for all to see.
Everyone should then guess which statement they think is a lie. Once everyone has given their answer, you can reveal the correct and incorrect statements. Then it is the next persons turn. Check out the video below:
2. First Impressions
- What did you base your guesses on?
- Did everyone guess everything wrong?
- Did anyone guess everything right?
3. Things in Common
They need to mingle and talk to other people in the class to find out anything that they may have in common.
Works well for a speaking activity. Is a lot of fun!
