Fun Icebreaker Ideas & Activities

Category: Team building

Team building icebreakers. Teambuilding games and activities can be valuable for all corporate training, teams that work together, camps, youth groups, churches, and other situations where good teamwork and improved communication are essential. They’re often challenging — in a good way!

  • Personal Artifact Game

    The Personal Artifact Game is the perfect icebreaker for those who want to stay away from the usual “who, what, where” questions that are typically asked in these sorts of activities. It requires participants to dig a little deeper than just their favorite color and bring something personal to the table!  Players are more likely to remember each other’s names from the stories behind each artifact. It encourages players to get to know each other personally and also provides future topics to discuss. Whether it’s the first day of class, camp, or on the job, the personal artifact icebreaker is sure to get discussions flowing and give each player a memorable moment associated with them.

    Set-Up

    • Note that this game requires people to plan a little bit in advance — ask each player to bring in a personal artifact from home.
    • A personal artifact can be anything that is special or who represents the individual. For example, players can bring in a stuffed teddy bear from childhood, an x-ray of a broken bone, a picture, or a locket.
    • Pair up with partners or set up seating into a half circle.

    How to Play the Personal Artifact Game

    1. Assign each a number or go alphabetically to select the order.
    2. If using a half circle, then have each person stand in front of the group. If using partners, then pair up people.
    3. Going one at a time, each person will briefly present their personal artifact to the group, including what it is and why they chose it.
    4. Depending on the amount of time, the audience can ask 2-3 questions about the artifact.

    Variations

    • Instead of having the player bring in a personal object, they can use anything they have on them. Players can pull something out of their purse, wallet, or even use their current clothing and tell about its origin.
    • Players can pass around their artifacts if they feel comfortable.
    • To make the game more interesting, you can take the items and mix them up on a table, then have players guess who each of the items belongs to and explain why.

  • Shoe Pile Mingle Game

    A great way to break the ice is the Shoe Pile Meet-and-Greet Mingle Game.  This icebreaker game is especially useful for corporations and training situations where you want to break the ice and build up team chemistry.

    Setup for Shoe Pile Mingle

    Ask everyone to take off one of their shoes (only one of their shoes).  Have everyone throw their shoe into a big pile in the center of the room.

    Playing Shoe Pile Mingle Game

    Explain the rules of the game.  Once everyone takes off one shoe and throws it into a big shoe pile, have everyone randomly grab a shoe. The goal is to mingle and go around the room, introducing yourself and talking to many people and trying to find the person whose shoe you are holding.

    Warning! This game may be a bit smelly.  But that’s okay — all in the name of teambuilding and breaking the ice, right?

  • 3 Games of Intimate Cooperation

    1. Pucker Up

    You won’t kiss anyone in this game, but you won’t be far off. The game challenges you to carry a tennis ball between the mouths of two players. Get in sync with your partner or risk dropping the ball and ruining the mood.

    You will need

    • 3 tennis balls per team
      A glass for each team
      A bowl for each team

    Set-up

    1. Put the glass and bowl, which are your start point and endpoint respectively, on opposite sites of the room.
    2. Place the tennis balls near the glass.
    3. Arrange players into pairs. v

    Rules

    One teammate will place a tennis ball on top of the glass. This is so you have easy access to all sides of the ball. Both teammates now lower their faces to the tennis ball and place their mouths on opposite sides of the ball.

    Now that the ball is trapped between their faces, they should now be able to lift and move the ball. With ball only in contact with both player’s mouths, the teammates will transport the ball to the bowl on the other side of the room, and drop the ball in the bowl.

    Return to the other side of the room, and repeat for the other two tennis balls to finish the challenge. The team that finishes first, wins!

     

    Ready Spaghetti

    A similar concept to above. There’s no Lady And The Tramp spaghetti action here, but you will be holding a piece of uncooked spaghetti lengthways between two player’s mouths. They use this rigid pasta prop to transport soda cans, threading the pasta through the can’s ring pull.

    You will need

    • A strand of uncooked spaghetti per team.
    • 3 empty soda cans per player. Pull the ring pulls on all cans into a vertical position.

    Set-up

    1. Place the soda cans on one end of the room.
    2. Designate an “target area” on a surface at the other end of the room.
    3. Arrange players into pairs. The two teammates will start by standing on opposite sites of the soda cans.

    Rules

    One teammate places one end of the spaghetti in their mouths, so that it is pointing away from them. Without using any other part of their body point the spaghetti towards the can, and thread it through the ring pull. The other player now uses their mouth to hold the other end of the spaghetti.

    The team can now lift the spaghetti supported can between them. Take the can to the target area. One player now releases the spaghetti so it can be freed to use for the next can.

    Go back to the cans and repeat twice more. The first team to transport all three cans wins!

     

    Belly Balloon Break

    Use the power of hugging to violently burst as many balloons as possible between you and your teammate’s bellies. Don’t get too affectionate — this is squeezing is for competitive purposes!

    You will need

    1. 10 baloons for each team.

    Rules

    Arrange the players into pairs. Players must pick up a balloon, hold it between the bellies of themselves and their teammates, then remove their hands so that the balloon is supported only by belly pressure.

    Together, the teammates squeeze the balloon between them until it pops! Take another balloon and repeat the process.

    The first team to pop all ten of their balloons wins!

  • Quick Questions

    This simple game involves creativity, silliness and the ability to get to know one another’s way of thinking!

    What will you need?

    Pen and paper for each player, and a timer

    How to play Quick Questions

    1. Have each player write down three “would you rather” questions that involve no physical activity or movement – just creative imagination. For example: Would you rather fly a dragon or talk to a unicorn? Would you rather live in an underwater castle or on top of a mountain? Would you rather be a bear that no one wants to be around, or a popular spider?

    2. Gather players in a circle and give each player one minute to answer the questions they wrote down. 

    3. After everyone has shared their answers, have players take turns asking others in the circle their “would you rather” questions. The person who is being asked the question must answer before they can ask someone else’s question. You may also pass.

    4. Once all players have gone around with their questions, set the timer for two minutes. During this time, any pair of players can ask and answer as many “would you rather” questions as possible within the time limit! 

    5. At the end of two minutes, whoever answered the most “would you rather” questions wins!

  • Photo Scavenger Hunt

    Photo Scavenger Hunt is a fun team-based scavenger hunt activity with an interesting twist — the goal is to bring back digital photos (or polaroids) of various places and things.  By doing this, people will capture good memories and also have some experience working together and collaborating as a team.

    This is an active game and teambuilding activity.  The recommended group size is: teams of three or four people.  Allocate plenty of time for this activity.  Recommended ages are: 15 and up.  You will need one camera (a digital camera or polaroid) for each team.

    Setup for the Photo Scavenger Hunt

    As the facilitator of this activity, prepare a list of about twelve interesting places, things, and circumstances that can be captured using a camera.  Some examples of items you can write are:

    • A family of animals
    • A group photo with a local celebrity or someone famous
    • A very relaxing place
    • Something big and the color pink
    • The biggest tree
    • A group photo with someone dressed in very formal attire
    • A photo with a yellow car
    • A human pyramid of at least seven people
    • The funniest thing you can find
    • Something that begins with the letter “Z”

    Be creative with this list.  When you have the list prepared, make enough copies for each team.

    Playing the Photo Scavenger Hunt 

    Divide the group into teams of about three to four people.  Distribute cameras (preferably digital, although polaroid is okay too) and copies of the list you made.  Explain the rules of the activity.  Set a time limit for the groups (e.g. two hours or so).  Instruct the teams to find as many things as they can on the list, and for each item, take a picture with all the group members in the photo.  Encourage the players to be creative and to think outside of the box.

    When time expires, have all members reconvene and present their photos along with their checklist.  Award one point for each successful photo item and bonus points for extra creativity or effort.

    This activity is great for building team chemistry and for creating (and capturing!) funny memories.  Be sure to provide adequate supervision if there are younger participants.  Always keep safety first!