Fun Icebreaker Ideas & Activities

Category: Medium Group

Icebreakers for medium groups. The following games work really well for a group size of 5-10 people. Check them out!

  • Good Icebreaker Questions

    Good Icebreaker Questions is simply a list of 12 good questions that you can ask to help break the ice.  These questions are fun, and generally pretty easy and safe to answer.  You can use them as an icebreaker for meetings or classrooms, written on notecards and adapted for other games, or simply as a fun activity to help people get to know each other better.

    Instructions for Good Icebreaker Questions

    In terms of facilitation, a great way to help people get to know each other is to ask them fun questions that allow them to express their personality or interesting things about them.  Here is a list of fun, useful icebreaker questions to help break the ice:

    • If you were a comic strip character, who would you be and why?
    • What thought or message would you want to put in a fortune cookie?
    • If you had to give up a favorite food, which would be the most difficult to give up?
    • What is one food you’d never want to taste again?
    • If you won a lottery ticket and had a million dollars, what would you do with it?
    • You’ve been given access to a time machine.  Where and when would you travel to?
    • If you could be any superhero and have super powers, which one would you like to have and why?
    • Mount Rushmore honors four U.S. presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt.  If yuo could add any person to Mount Rushmore, who would you add and why?
    • What award would you love to win and for what achievement?
    • If you could transport yourself anywhere instantly, where would you go and why?
    • In your opinion, which animal is the best (or most beautiful) and why?
    • What is one item that you really should throw away, but probably never will?
    • Growing up, what were your favorite toys to play with as a child? 
  • Blanket Game

    Blanket Game

    The Blanket Game is a funny icebreaker to get to know other folks in the room.  A large blanket is held up between two groups, and one player from each team stands behind the blanket.  The goal of the game is to be the first to identify the other person behind the blanket.

    Materials required: One very large blanket (or curtain).

    This game works for small, medium, and large groups, although teams of 10 people probably work best.  For extremely large groups, pick about 20 volunteers to go to the front of the room to play.

    Setup for the Blanket Game

    There is not much setup involved for this activity.  Form two large teams, preferably about 5-10 people per team.  Have each team go to the front of the room.  Have two volunteers hold a blanket or curtain open between the two groups, so that each group cannot see behind the blanket.  If players do not know each other well, quickly have each player introduce their name to the room.

    Playing the Blanket Game

    blanket-game

    For each turn, each team chooses a volunteer to stand (or sit) behind the blanket.  The facilitator will count “1, 2, 3” and then drop the blanket.  The first player to correctly identify the name of the other player wins the round, earning one point.

    Repeat until one team reaches a desired number of points (or whenever time runs out).  This activity is a good way to learn names.  Have fun!

    To get supplies for the Blanket Name Game, shop our online store.

  • Candy Introductions Activity

    Candy Introductions Activity is a get-to-know-you game that helps people learn new facts about each other in an easy way.  They select various pieces of candy from a bag, and each candy variety is associated with a fact about themselves which they will introduce to the others. This game also goes by other names, including the M&M game, Candy Confessions, the Skittles Game, the Gum Drop game, among others.

    Candy Introductions can work with any group size.  The icebreaker game works best when the group size is limited to 12, so if you have more than 12, divide the larger group and run the icebreaker within the smaller sized groups.  This icebreaker works best indoors, and is well suited for classrooms or meeting rooms.  Materials required are: candy with about five different variations (color or candy type), and an optional chalkboard/whiteboard.

    Setup for Candy Introductions

    Purchase several variety packs of candy, enough for each person to be able to have at least five pieces.  They can be any candy type, but not too many choices (limit it to around five or six different varieties).  Alternatively, you can buy gummy bears, life savers, gum drops, skittles, m&ms, or any other candy that already has a variety of colors.

    Instructions for How to Play 

    Pass around the candy and tell each participant to choose anywhere from 1 to 5 pieces of anything that they want.  Instruct them not to eat it yet, though.  After they have chosen their candy, you will tell them what each candy type/color represents.

    If there is a whiteboard or chalkboard present, write on the board the following:

    • Red – Favorite hobbies
    • Green – Favorite place on earth
    • Blue – Favorite memory
    • Yellow -Dream job
    • Orange – Wildcard (tell us anything about yourself!)

    If you don’t have the above colors, change the above to match the candy types that you have.  Each person takes turns introducing himself or herself, beginning with their name and then saying one fact for each candy type that they have.  This easy introduction game should go relatively quickly (assuming they weren’t greedy and that they didn’t take too many pieces of candy!)

  • Fabulous Flags Game

    Fabulous Flags (also known as the Personal Flags Game) is a useful icebreaker activity to help people convey what represents them or what is important to them.  Each person draws a flag that contains some symbols or objects that symbolizes who they are or what they enjoy.

    This get-to-know-you activity is best done indoors.  Any number of people can participate.  The recommended age is 7 and up.  Materials required are: several sheets of paper, pens, and colored pencils/crayons/markers.

    Instructions for Fabulous Flags Activity

    Pass out a sheet of paper, pens, and colored pencils, crayons, and/or markers to each person.  Explain the activity: “We’re now going to draw flags that represent or symbolize us.  Please design your own flag of you – include some symbols or objects that symbolize who you are or what you find enjoyable or important.”  You can show your own sample flag if you like.  For example, you could draw:

    • a guitar (representing your passion for music)
    • a tennis racket (someone who enjoys sports)
    • a country like India (representing your affiliation with a country)
    • a cross and a heart (representing Jesus and His love for the world)

    Give everyone a set amount of time to draw (e.g. 15-20 minutes or so) and then reconvene.  Ask for volunteers to share their flags and explain the meaning of what they drew.  If it is a large group, you can divide everyone into smaller groups and ask them to share their flags with each other, or you can just ask a small number of volunteers to share.

    Variations

    After everyone has finished sharing the individual flags, as a big group you can ask everyone to brainstorm ideas on what to draw for a large class-wide flag.  Proceed to delegate individuals to draw certain parts of the class-wide flag.  Alternatively, you can collect the individual flags and paste them onto a board to create a “quilt” of individual flags, representing unity.

    (credits: thanks Eunice!)

  • 3 Icebreaker Games That Use Drink Cans

    1. Tipsy

    Here’s a cool party trick: if you leave just the right amount of liquid in a tin can, you can balance that can diagonally, on its edge. We’re use that fact to play a quick relay race, one part drinking game and one part balancing act.

    You will need

    One unopened 330 ml drink can for each player.
    Tables or other surface in reach of all players. This is so they have somewhere to balance their drink.

    Set-Up

    1. Split the room into two teams.
    2. Have each team arranged into a rough line, so they know what order they will play in.
    3. Give all players an unopened drink.
    4. For both teams tell the players at one end of the line that they will be the starting players.

    Rules

    The starting players open their can, drink approximately three quarters of the contents, and then attempt to balance the can on it’s edge, as quickly as they can.

    As soon as a player has successfully balanced their can, the next player in their team can proceed to open their own can and attempt the challenge. This makes this game into a sort of relay race.

    The first team to get from the start of their line to the end, with the last player having successfully balanced their can wins!

    Now that you’ve got lot’s of empty cans, we can use them for the following games!:

    2. Sliding Towers

    Do you think you could slide an empty can across a table… using only your head? Race others for the title of fastest moving face.

    You will need

    • Six empty cans per player.
      Your noggin.
      An empty table.

    Set-up

    Place an empty can near the corner of the table. If two people play simultaneously, also put a can in the opposite corner. Each player will start in one of these corners.
    Nearby, but out of the way, place the other cans so you have stacks of two and stacks of three.

    Rules

    Each player must push the single can from their end of the table to the other end using only their head and face. They cannot touch the can with their hands, shoulders neck etc. or they must take the can back to the starting position and try again.

    When a player has successfully pushed their can to end of the table, they immediately pick up a stack of two cans, put them in their starting corner, and go again with the larger stack.

    After the stack of two, players progress onto the stack of three. If at any time the stack falls over, it is immediately moved back to the starting position and the player can try again.

    This game is a race! The first player to get the third stack of cans to the end of the table wins.

    3. Candelier

    Become an architect of dangerous structures in this game, where you build a large, structurally unsound inverse pyramid out of cans and paper plates.

    You will need

    • 15 Empty Cans Per player
      5 Paper Plates per player

    (If you don’t have enough cans to play with multiple players at the same time, do this game one player at a time, and time the results. The fastest player wins)

    Set-up

    Put the cans and paper plates in reach of the players.

    Rules

    • The challenge is to build the following structure:
      One can as the foundation.
      A paper plate on top of each level of cans.
      One extra can per level of top of the plates.
      Until you end with five cans on the top level, and a final plate on top.
      This creates a sort of wonky pyramid shape, with increasing numbers of cans alternating with paper plates.

    The structure may topple, but the players can always continue on from whatever is left. The first player to finish their “candelier” wins!

  • Tilt A Cup Game

    Build and hold onto an upright swinging tower of cups and balls. As the game progresses, this tower will become increasingly unwieldy, swinging unpredictably. You’ll have to use a steady hand to keep control of the tower.  Tilt that cup!  Catch the bouncing ping pong balls to win.

    This games uses elements of games like Moving On Up and Bouncer. You can play it as a solitaire challenge, as a competitive race, or in teams.

    You will need

    • 8 plastic cups per player
    • 8 ping pong balls per player

    Set up

    For each player:

    1. Put all cups together, one inside another, to create a compressed stack.
    2. The player takes hold of the stack of cups from the bottom.
    3. Put the 8 ping pong balls within easy reach.

    Rules

    Players create a tower of cups and balls by the following process:

    • They first bounce a ping pong ball on the ground, then catch that ping pong ball in their stack of cups.
    • When the ball is caught — the top cup in a stack now has a ping pong ball in it — the player takes the cup from the bottom of the stack and places it at the top. The new top cup is now sitting on a ping pong ball and has some freedom to move around.
    • Repeat this process. Bounce another ping pong ball and catch it in the top cup of the stack. Then move the bottom cup the top, adding to an increasingly wobbly tower of alternating cups and ping pong balls.

    Once a player has caught all ping pong balls, creating a tower where every cup is separated by a ping pong ball, with one final ping pong ball in the top cup, they have finished!

    This is a great game for challenging your coordination. You not only have to bound the ball with one hand and catch it using the cups in the other, but the top cup will get increasingly further away from the hand that it trying to keep it under control. If you move the tower of cups around too quickly, or hold it at the wrong angle, it might fall apart completely, forcing you to start again.

    Variants

    To play this as a race, simply give every player a stack and their own ping pong balls. The first player to finish the challenge wins!

    The team variant has one player taking control of the stack of cups and another starting with all the ping pong balls. The player with the balls will be standing several feet away and throwing the balls to the player holding the cups. All other rules are the same.

  • Newspaper Towers Game

    Compete against other teams to see who can build the largest tower using only one ingredient – newspaper!  Newspaper Towers (also known as Build the Tower) is a great teambuilding activity involves creativity, coordination, and teamwork!

    This activity works best for people ages 8 and up.  It works great for groups of six to fifteen people.

    Materials needed

    • A lot of newspapers — be sure to recycle them!
    • A timer or stopwatch
    • Rolls of scotch tape
    • Measuring tape

    How to set up Newspaper Towers

    Collect as many newspapers as possible in advance and separate them into equal piles. If you know how many people will be there, create 1 pile for each team you will have, but if you don’t know the group size just create equal piles of newspapers with some left over as spares.

    How to play Newspaper Towers

    1. Divide the main group up into teams. Ideal size for each team is between 2 – 4 people. If you are doing this as a team-building exercise, you might consider larger teams to promote healthy communication and interactions, otherwise 4 should be your maximum group size.
    2. Give each group an equal pile of newspaper and a roll of tape. Ensure that you have some spare newspapers in case one team ends up needing them for any reason.
    3. Set your timer for around 5-10 minutes or prepare your stopwatch. On your signal, all teams should go to their newspaper piles and begin working. The goal of the game is to build the largest tower out of only newspapers. Teams can use any sort of design methods they would like as long as only the newspaper is being used and no assistance is given by glue, tape, staples, or anything else.
    4. Once the designated amount of time expires, all teams must immediately stop working on their towers – and hope they stay up! Go around and inspect the towers, being sure to measure each tower to find out which one is the tallest of them all. Also check that only newspaper was used with no other supplies. Any tower that falls over before its height is judged cannot be repaired or built again.

    Winning the game

    The winner of this game is the team that successfully builds the tallest tower using only newspaper and tape. Any tower design is acceptable as well as any building method, as long as the teams are only using the provided supplies of newspaper.  For a harder game, use less (or no) tape.

    Alternatively, you could judge based on a point system that give credit for artistic designs and creativity as well as the height of the tower.

  • Psychiatrist Game

    Confuse the designated psychiatrist by acting like other people in the group.  The psychiatrist must guess who is who and why!

    This game works best for ages 13+.  It works great with medium to large sized groups of 6+ people.  Nothing is needed except a timer or stopwatch.  Indoors is the ideal setting.

    How to set up the Psychiatrist Game

    There is no required setup.  Players should be seated in a circle.  The “psychiatrist” will be in the center of the circle.

    How to play:

    1. Organize the group so that one person is chosen as the “psychiatrist” while the others are the “patients.” The psychiatrist can be a volunteer or selected based on criteria of your choice such as who has the nearest birthday.
    2. Have the psychiatrist leave the room and wait to be fetched by one of the patients or yourself. While they’re out of the room, the patients should all talk amongst themselves and discuss who is going to act like whom. This must be based on a specific pattern that will not change. For example: Patients can decide that they will each act like the person to their immediate left. No matter if they move around or switch places with each other, the pattern will stay the same.
    3. Bring the psychiatrist back into the room and line up the patients. Start the timer for a certain amount of time (recommended to be at least 5 minutes). The psychiatrist must question people and try to figure out who is acting like whom while the patients are acting like others based on their secret pattern. If the psychiatrist asks a question and the patient answers incorrectly, the person they are pretending to be must yell out “psychiatrist!” and everyone will get up and rearrange themselves.
    4. Even when everyone is rearranged, the pattern of who is acting like whom will stay the same. The game ends when the psychiatrist guesses the pattern correctly or when the designated time runs out. When the game is over the last person to have spoken to the psychiatrist will become the new psychiatrist if you are playing for another round.

    Winning the game

    If the psychiatrist can correctly guess the pattern that the patients came up with, they will be the winners of the game. If the time runs out and the psychiatrist cannot guess the pattern within the set amount of time than they will lose the game and the patients will be the winners.  Have fun!

  • Picture Whispers Game

    The Picture Whispers game is sort of like Pictionary mixed with the Telephone Game. Picture Whispers actually has some advantages over Pictionary. First, all players get to draw at the same time, and then get to guess at the same time, in phases, which means more game for everyone involved. Second, the game concludes with each player revealing sequentially all stage of drawings and guesses in their notepad, sharing with the group a short, absurd story of misunderstanding, non-sequitur, and debatable artistic merit. This reveal is similar in effect to — and has all the hilarity of — popular group storytelling game Consequences, or this collaborative drawing game.

    Play Picture Whispers with at least four players, and up to as many as you like, though as the game gets longer for every additional person in the chain, so if you have many more than ten it may be best to end the game after a certain number of passes (say, ten) rather than play all the way to the end of the circle. You could also split a large group into two smaller circles.

    Set-up:

    • All players sit in a circle, or around a table.
    • All players are given:
      • A small notebook or several small sheets of paper
      • A writing utensil.
      • Optional: Some item to be used as a bookmark, to mark which the current page is in case the notepad is closed, would also be useful.

    Rules:

    Each player will choose a word or phrase to write on the first page of their notebook. This could be an object, a person, a place, a concept, the title of a book or movie, or pretty much anything. Players are free to write something as sober, silly or lewd as they want — paying all respect to the company they are in, of course. Remember that some words are harder to express in pictures that others.

    Each player writes that word on the first page of their notebook, and passes their notebook to the player on their left. Be sure that nobody but the player on your left sees your notebook. Also be sure that nobody looks back through the notebook to see what was written or drawn by previous players.

    Now each player turns to the next page of their notebook, and draws an interpretation of the word they were passed. If the word on the first page of the notebook was “fairy”, you should now turn the page and draw a fairy, as best you can.

    Each player passes their notebook to the left again, looks at the drawing on the notebook they have just been passed from their right, and guesses what the word that inspired that drawing might be. Hopefully, the player who has just been passed a picture of a fairy writes “fairy”… but maybe that picture looks more like an “angel”, or “Tinkerbell”, or “Doctor Octopus”.

    Play proceeds in this manner, with every player alternately drawing a picture based on a work, or guessing a word based on a picture, until each notebook is passed back to its original owner (ie. the player that wrote the word on the first page).

    Now, in turn, each player reveals to the rest of the table, from the first page with the original word to the last used page, the contents of their notebook.

  • Line Up Game

    Line Up! is a fun icebreaker that can be useful for camps, workplace bonding, or other large group events.  Work together as a team to arrange yourselves in a line based on a quality you have that is not obviously apparent. Examples of qualities to arrange to are alphabetically by middle name, chronologically according to birth date, or house number. Younger children could try something easier, such as arranging by height, because they may not all be able to recite the months of the year. This icebreaker starts as chaos, and ends with order as all participants work together to discover the facts they need and arrange themselves accordingly.

    Line Up works best in a large open space where participants can move around freely. This is an icebreaker that is ideal for very large groups because the leadership required scales appropriately with the number of players.  Smaller groups can still use this icebreaker, but the game is not as difficult with under 10 participants. Line Up is an engaging activity that can help group facilitators pinpoint natural leaders that emerge as the game is played, although every participant is an important part of the game.

    Materials

    To play the Line Up icebreaker, you will need:

    • A large open space for participants to move around
    • A list of qualities for the players to line up according to

    How To Play

    1. Call the group to order. Explain the rules of the game and explain the quality that they will line up according to. For example, line up in the order of your birthdays, with January 1 being the furthest to the left and December 31 being the furthest to the right.
    2. Do not help the group or give them hints as to how to organize themselves. Participants may use any objects available in the room to help them if they request them.
    3. When the group believes that the line up is correct, they will start at one end and call off their birthdays. Down the line, every participant will name off their date. The game is won if the line is correct.
    4. If the line is incorrect, give the players another quality to line up to and allow them to try again.

    Tips and Notes

    The tricky part of this game is getting a group of people who don’t know each other to establish leadership. If no one steps forward and starts to make leadership decisions, it will be very difficult for the players to line up. If too many people step forward with opposing leadership strategies, it will be difficult to find cohesion as each leader struggles to get buy in from the rest of the group.

    Line Up works particularly well with groups of people who don’t know each other. In a group that is more familiar with one another, it won’t take long for them to decide the leaders because they have previous experience with each other’s leadership skills.