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Salt & Light Company | |||
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Introduction Large Group Icebreakers Comic Strips; Animal Sounds; Hint 1)
Before the kids show up, get an idea of how many teams you want to work
with. Find that number of comic strips. Paste the comics onto cardboard
or a harder construction paper and cut them into puzzles of up to ten or
so pieces (more if you want larger
teams). On the other side of the construction paper leave a spot for the
kids to write their name. When the kids arrive, randomly hand out the
name tags. Get the kids all riled up with a huge game such as
everybody's it, or Simon says or another game of that type where the
kids are just in one huge group. Then tell the kids to take off their
name tags and solve the puzzles. Make
it a race against the other teams and have fun while watching the kids
run around searching for others with the same comic. 2)
As the kids walk in hand them a folded piece of paper with the name of
an animal on it (the amount of names, and the number of pieces with the
same name depends on number of teams, and how large you want the teams
to be), tell them not to look until you say to. When everyone has
arrived put them into a boundary (if you’re in a gym, use the lines on
the floor, if you’re on a field, use something VERY visible to show
your boundaries). Tell the kids that they can't step out of the
boundaries. Now, tell them that each piece of paper holds a name of an
animal and that there are so many other people with the same name. Tell
them that they have to act out sounds and actions that would tell other
team members that they are part of their team, they are not allowed to
speak any words, only noises. Tell them to unfold their papers and go to
it. (Never have I ever heard my kids be so loud and laugh
so much!!!!) 3)
Just a hint. If the kids come in groups that are brought by adults, and
the adults are going to stay all night. Get the adults involved.
The kids will relax and be more interested in what is happening if they
see the adults acting foolish along with them Duckie Wuckie This
is a game good for all ages. Have
the group sit on chairs in a circle facing each other. A person in the center is given a pillow, blind-folded, and
spun around. She then takes
the pillow places it on the lap of someone in the circle and sits down
on it. The she asks, “Is
there a Duckie Wuckie there?” The
person being sat on disguises there voice and says, “Duckie Wuckie
who?” Then the person in the middle guesses who the person is.
If they guess right the new person is in the middle, if she
guesses wrong, she stays in the middle and the process is started all
over again. While the
person in the middle is being spun around the outside people in the
chairs must move around. Dueling Nose Penlights This
has been a pretty successful way to start our club on time, as I know
many of you probably
struggle with that problem: What you do is turn off the lights and
immediately start the skit. Then have two leaders ready at the front of
your Club room. These two leaders each have a pair of small pen lights
that light up when you push on their sides. The leaders shove the lights
up their noses as the music of “Dueling Banjos” (from the movie
Deliverance—squeal like a pig!) begins playing. One leader plays the
banjo and the other a guitar and they shine the light in their noses on
every banjo or guitar note. It is funny from the beginning, but when they start to jam it
really gets funny! It is also great to use as a way to sell camp since
many camps have a western theme. I don’t guarantee results, but if the
timing is good, it should be pretty funny.
Famous Animal Crowdbreaker This
is a good way to get people into small groups.
Have the group leaders place written names of different cartoon
characters on the backs of the retreatants without letting them know
what is going on. Then have
the retreatants ask other retreatants yes or no questions about the
person on their back. Once
they figure out who they are have them group themselves together either
by shows or by companies (Warner Bros. or Disney). Goin' On A Picnic Age
Group: Early and Mid Adolescents The
leader explains to the group that he is going on a picnic, and any of
them can
Human Bingo This
icebreaker is good for all ages and takes about 10-15 minutes to do.
Handout the worksheet that is found in the index in the back of
this book. Then tell them
to have other people sign your worksheet according to the actions that
are written on the piece of paper.
You cannot have the same person sign your sheet twice.
Do this until your whole worksheet is filled.
This is a good way to get the retreatants up and going and to get
new people. I
Wanna Meet Put
the group into a large circle of chairs. Pick one person to be in the
middle and remove that person's chair. The person in the middle yells
"I wanna meet...", finishing the sentence with whatever they
want "... everyone with red hair...all the girls...everyone who's
birthday is in June...everyone who hates spinach", etc. Then,
everyone who meets that criteria must get up and run to an empty chair
at least 5 chairs away from their previous position. The person left
without a chair gets to yell "I wanna meet..." next.
You have to be careful with this one. Occasionally, kids will
want to know more about each other than you think. Moose, Moose You
need at least 5 people (you can play with less) to play. You start with
everyone in a circle. One person is Moose, Moose. This person starts the game. Now, everyone in the circle
chooses an animal, like, gator, gator or cat, cat or shark, shark. Along
with the animals, you have hand signals. For example, Moose, Moose would
put both hands on their head and make like two horns (like Bullwinkle),
another example would be gator, gator, he would put his arms in front
like an alligator's mouth. You
can make up more animals with hand signals as needed.
Now Moose, Moose starts the game by signaling his signal and
saying "Moose, Moose Cat, Cat" the game is now on cat, cat.
You keep passing the game from player to player in no particular
order. When someone messes up they must move from their position and sit
to the left of Moose, Moose, we called that character Pig, Pig and they
made a pig nose as their signal. The
game can get real intense and fun, because when someone slips up
everyone laughs. It's usually a funny mistake. Name Game 1 Variation 1 Group
in a circle; first person says name; 2nd person says first persons name,
then his name; 3rd person says 1st person's name, 2nd person's name then
his own name. Go around
until last person has said everyone's names. Variation 2 As
above, but include something else other than name, e.g. "My name is
XXX and I like apples". Name Game 2 Go
around in circle; introduce name and do an action; the whole group then
says name and does action. Take turns to do this for each person. person:
"My name is XXX" <action/sound> group:
"His/Her name is XXX" <action/sound> next
person: "My name is YYY" <action/sound> group:
"His/Her name is YYY" <action/sound> Name Game 3 Take
turns to introduce self (name), state an animal/object that you like,
and state why. Newspaper Game, Pepper Bopper Any
Size Group Get
a soft pillow or something else you can get hit with that doesn't hurt.
(We have these foam bats that work great). Have the group sit in a
circle with one person in the middle. Pick someone to start. They stand
up and yell the name of another person in the group and "IT"
has to hit that person before they stand up and yell another name. (We
limit the hitting to knees and below).
After "IT" gets someone they take that persons place
and start it over again. Obvious Observing: 1.
Break the class into groups of two. Have them stand facing each other
and observing each other. 2.
After a short observance time, have the partners turn their backs to
each other and make three changes in personal appearance
(change hair, move a ring to a different finger, unbutton a sleeve,
etc.) 3.
Let them observe each other again and try to identify the changes. 4.
Repeat this process with different partners and different numbers of
changes with more or less observance time. Shoe Game Everybody
takes off a shoe and throws them in a pile on the floor. At the count of
three, everyone has to grab a shoe from the pile, then find the person
with the matching shoe on their other foot and find out their name and
three things about them they didn't already know (like where they go to
school or how many brothers or sisters they have).
This is fun because everyone is trying to find someone while
someone else is trying to find them. Works best with larger (>10)
groups. After everyone has found their person and asked them the
questions, then go around the circle and have everyone introduce the
person they talked to and tell the three things about them. String Game Pass
around a ball of string and some scissors and ask everyone to cut off a
piece. Some will take tiny pieces, some very long ones. After everyone
has a piece, go around they circle and have everyone say one thing about
themselves for each finger width of string. This usually gets a few
laughs for the person who cut off several feet!
This can also be done with M&Ms and toilet paper. Stupid Name Game *this
is great for an ice breaker or for getting names memorized 1.
Have students stand in a circle. 2.
You will start by stating your name and showing an action or mannerism
that you commonly do. 3.
The person to the instructor's left will state the instructors name and
mannerism and then add his/her name and then his/her mannerism. This
continues around the circle until the last person can remember every
person's name and mannerism. Surveys Game We
did this on our Intermediate (7th and 8th grade) retreat. Everyone wrote
(on a 3x5) 5 little known things about themselves with their name at the
top of the card. The cards were then turned over to the moderator (in
this case the youth minister). The youth minister would say: "I am
___________" and the group had to guess who was associated with
this fact. The group had 3 chances. A correct answer was rewarded with a
small snack. If after 3 attempts no one was right, the person who wrote
the fact got the snack. We
got to learn a lot about the various members of the group, and it was
fun! Turns and Trades number
of people: 15 or up number
of minutes: 10 retreatants:
high school (voluntary), college You
need to make two circles. The
inner circle facing out and the outer circle facing inward. Then have the kids pair up with the person in front of them
in the circle. This should
even up the number of people that are in the outer and inner circles.
Then have the partners introduce themselves to one another.
Then have them trade something that belongs to them with their
partner. Then have the outer circle move 2 to the right.
Have the new pair of people introduce themselves and then trade
something that belongs to them (not what they previously picked up).
Then have the outer circle shift 2 to the right.
Have this new partnership introduce themselves and then trade
something that was given to them. Then
have the outer circle shift 2 to the right one more time.
Have this final partnership introduce themselves to one another
then trade the final object that is not yours.
Now each person should have an object that belongs to someone you
have not yet met in this game. Now
they break the circle and find the owners of the objects and introduce
themselves to each other, until all the objects are returned to their
rightful owners. Who am I? Make
up a card for each attendee with the name of a famous person, living or
dead, fictional or real and tape it to the person's back. They then have
to circulate throughout the room and ask people questions about who they
are. They can only ask each person once and they cannot ask the
questions of people they already know.
I used this once with a group of 150; worked real well. It's
somewhat similar to the idea above.
This only works, I guess, with a pre-registered group... I knew
that later on I would want the kids breaking up into groups, and I
didn't want them to automatically group with people they already knew.
What I did was on the back of their pre-prepared name tags, I wrote a
word. I wrote the same word on the back of ten name tags, dividing the
150 kids into 15 groups. When
it came time for them to get into their groups, I told them all to go
ahead and split up. After a few minutes of hustle and bustle, I told
them to stop. No more talking. I instructed everyone to remove their
name tag, unfold it and look at the word inside. Do not show it to
anyone. Now, without saying anything out loud, I want you to track down
the other nine people in your group. Go!
The words included "BUS", "APPLE",
"SKYSCRAPER", "COMPUTER", et cetera. Charade-type
words that can be acted out. It was hilarious!! Eventually, everyone got
in a group and all were laughing; they didn't even realize they were
separated from their friends because their newly formed group was
already acting as a team to locate lost members. One of the teams went
so far as form a bus and "drive" around the auditorium,
picking up the other "bus" people.
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