Fun Icebreaker Ideas & Activities

Category: Talking Games

Talking games involve — you guessed it — talking! They often allow people to share their opinions or interesting things about themselves. Try them out and have fun!

  • Interview Game

    Spend three minutes finding three interesting facts about a partner, then discuss them as a group. Interviewers will ask pointed, specific questions and subjects will answer them to the best of their ability. Afterwards, the interviewer will report to the rest of the group about what they learned.

    This icebreaker is a good way to spark conversation in quiet groups that may be intimidated by public speaking or more active icebreakers. It works reasonably well with groups that don’t have space to move around, although spreading out is ideal for this icebreaker.

    Interview is an icebreaker for mid-sized groups (8-15 people) and works best with groups aged 10 and up. Younger children may have difficulty thinking of questions to ask their partner and identifying interesting facts. Larger or smaller groups can use this icebreaker, but it will start to run long and loud the more people participating. Smaller groups can use Interview, but groups will likely be able to hear one another, which leads to cross-talk and derails the purpose of the icebreaker.

    Materials

    To play the Interview icebreaker, you will need:

    • Paper for each pair to jot notes on
    • 1 pen or pencil per pair
    • Watch or clock to time the activity
    • Flip chart or whiteboard (optional)
    • Permanent marker or dry erase marker (optional)

    How To Play the Interview Game

    1. Divide the group into pairs. A group with an odd number of participants can have one group of three, or the odd person can partner with the group leader. Spread out as much as possible so that each partners can hear each other speak.
    2. Each group will need to decide who is going to be the “interviewer” and who will be the “subject.” Everyone will eventually play both roles, so it doesn’t really matter who goes first.
    3. Give the group three minutes for each interviewer to learn three interesting facts about their subject by asking specific questions. Do not allow them to ask, “What are three interesting facts about you?” Good questions examples are: Where did you grow up? What was your favorite class in high school? What do you like to do in your spare time?
    4. After three minutes has passed, bring the players together and allow one interviewer at a time to explain what interesting facts they discovered. Jot down notes on a whiteboard or flip chart next to each subject’s name, which helps name recognition and sparks later conversation.
    5. Once every group has shared their facts, have the participants switch roles and repeat steps 3 and 4.

    Tips and Notes

    Watch the time! It can be very easy for participants to get into detailed conversations or launch into monologue about their interesting facts. Emphasize that facts should be delivered to the group in the form of one intriguing sentence, not a detailed explanation.

    The Interview Game gets noisy with lots of people talking in small groups. This icebreaker works best in a larger room where participants have a chance to spread out, and where high levels of noise won’t bother anyone.

  • Word Chains

    Test memory skills and on the spot thinking with Word Chains, a highly adaptable icebreaker for smaller groups. Players will sit in a circle and list words in a category. They must remember the words said previously and think of unique words to add. This icebreaker challenges memory skills and is great for players of any age. Word Chains naturally gets more difficult the longer it’s played. This means that players will be able to take the game to their skill level organically.

    One variation of Word Chains is to start the game with the phrase, “I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring…” Each player would add an item to the list after listing everything that came before. Any category of object can be used for Word Chains, such as types of fruit, state names, football teams, colors, items of clothing, and country music singers. The game can be made more difficult for older audiences by requiring that the words are in alphabetical order, although vaguer categories should be used to allow players flexibility to find all the words.

    Materials

    • Pencil and Paper. You may find the game more interesting if you take notes and track the phrase, or to act as mediator in case disputes arise.
    • List of categories or rule variations to try
    • 30-second timer

    How To Play Word Chains

    1. Arrange the participants in a circle and explain the rules of the game, any variations, and the theme of the word chain.
    2. Start the word chain yourself or designate someone as the start of the chain. Example: Theme – types of fruit. First word in the chain: Apple.
    3. The second person will have to repeat the chain, and add a unique word that fits the category. Example: Apple, Watermelon.
    4. Each person will have 30 seconds after correcting reciting the chain to add another new word.
    5. The icebreaker can be repeated with different categories or with different rule variations to make the game more challenging.
    6. The chain is broken when a player cannot correctly recite the chain or can’t think of a word to add to it within 30 seconds.

    Tips and Notes

    For a more competitive spin, don’t end the game when someone makes a mistake. Instead, that person can sit out and the game can continue until you find the champion of Word Chains.

    Feel free to adapt Word Chains to your group’s level.

    • Asking the group to think of words in alphabetical order makes it easier to remember the word chain and more difficult to think of a new word.
    • Asking players to start each word with the letter that ends the word before it makes it more difficult to both remember the chain and think of a new word.
    • Instead of category, players could list groups of words with 3 letters, or groups of words with 2 syllables, etc.

  • Time Hop

    Time Hop is all about exploring different periods throughout each others’ lives. The game is played with coins or possibly even stamps that have a date on them from more recent years. You will use these date to open up topics of discussions and learn what life was like for the other players at that point. The game is played best with a smaller group, so everyone will feel most comfortable. Make sure that the group of people you invite are all on equal terms to make everyone as comfortable as possible when talking about their life.

    What You Need To Play Time Hop

    This is what you will need to play Time Hop:

    1. A hat or bag.
    2. Items with a year marker on them.
    3. A list of years everyone was born.
    4. A timer.

    How To Set Up The Game

    Take a hat or grocery bag and fill it with pennies that you can still see the year on. Make sure that all the dates aren’t too old and everyone will fit in with the years on the pennies. Pick a room where everyone can hear each other clearly, you don’t want anyone being overshadowed by music or appliances. Make sure that everyone in the group is fine with sharing personal details with each other. Collect everyone’s birth years collected together and carefully sort out the pennies to make sure you don’t go too far in the past.

    How To Play Time Hop

    1. Put all the pennies into a bag and shake them around, go counter clockwise around the room allowing everyone to draw a penny. Once a Penny is drawn the player should call out the year and then think of an event that happened to them at that point in their life.

    2. When the player is telling their memory pay attention to them and make sure all players are being respectful. When near the end of their memory keep anyone from grabbing a penny from the hat early or trying to expedite the game.

    3. Make sure you set a limit as to what type of memories can be shared. If everyone gets into a rut talking about bad past experiences while playing the game it may cause a problem later on. Also, be sure to have a time limit set to keep anyone from taking the stage for too long.

    4. Make sure to communicate the environment you want for the game. State that you’d like only positive memories shared or that you’re ok with anything before the start.

    Winning The Game

    This game really doesn’t have a way to have a winner, as it is all about learning more about a person’s life. Be sure to clearly listen to each person as you play the game to find out what you have in common with them. If you find you don’t have enough pennies for the game you can write down years on a scrap of paper or use another item that is dated by year. If you want to expand the game you could even have a hat of years and seasons to extend the length of the game.

     

  • Would You Rather? Game

    Ask the group to decide what they would rather do given two possible options. Take a poll, and then lead a short debate between the merits and disadvantages of each option. The questions can range from silly, to gross, to impossibly cool. This icebreaker can also be adapted to fit a theme, such as a holiday or study unit. Would You Rather is a dynamic activity that makes people think on their feet and gives insight into their priorities.

    Would You Rather is a good icebreaker for large or small groups and is most effective in 10 to 40 minutes sessions. This highly adaptable activity can easily be made age appropriate for young children, adolescents, and even adults. Small groups could use this activity in more of a debate style, while bigger groups might call out reasons for choosing one or the other. The goal of the icebreaker is to initial conversations across the group and for participants to discover things they have in common that might not be obvious otherwise.

    Materials for the Would You Rather Icebreaker

    To play the Would You Rather icebreaker, you will need:

    • The list of Would You Rather questions
    • A writing utensil to keep count

    How To Play

    1. Make your list of questions. Would You Rather is easy to adapt to any event, grade level, or theme. The game can be played in a more formal or informal setting. See Tips and Notes for question ideas.
    2. Call the group together and explain your chosen rules. Designate one side of the room “Option A” and the other side “Option B.”
    3. Ask each question and ask participants to move to one side of the room or the other, depending on which option they “would rather.”
    4. Have each side explain their reasoning behind their decision. In a more formal game or a larger group, you could give each side a few moments to consult as a group and present their top three reasons for their choice. In a less formal game or smaller group, each person could say their top reason for their choice.
    5. After each group has had their say, move everyone back to the middle for their next question.
    6. Repeat steps 3 to 5.

    Tips and Notes

    Here are some question ideas to get you started.

    The Impossible

    • Would you rather be 10 feet tall or 10 inches tall?
    • Would you rather live in outer space or at the bottom of the ocean?
    • Would you rather be able to fly or able to run 50 mph?

    Gross Out

    • Would you rather swallow a bug or lick a frog?
    • Would you rather sit in a room with a snake or a tarantula?
    • Would you rather be bitten by a werewolf or a zombie?

    Make You Think

    • Would you rather travel 100 years back in history or 100 years into the future?
    • Would you rather live in the desert or in the Arctic?
    • Would you rather live forever or be remembered forever?

     

  • Song Sync

    The object of the game is to get more in touch with your group’s music tastes by identifying songs they know or have listened to. This activity can be done anywhere that allows for clear communication between the group. The game is played in any size group and will require a lot of listening and a room that is quiet enough to communicate easily in. The game will allow for players to also inject some of their own personality into the way they say the song lyrics.

    Materials Needed:

    What you will need to play song sync:

    Music knowledge
    A phone or computer to check claims
    A timer

    • How to Set Up Song Sync Game

    Pick a word that you hear a lot when listening to music like the word “hey” or “love.” Let the other group members know this is your set word for the game and explain that you can’t use a variation of the word like “lover” or “loved”. Make sure to check and see if the word is widely used in songs by googling ” songs with ___ in it”; this will pull up sites that list songs with your chosen word in them. If you wish to play multiple games write down multiple words to use and let your guests choose which ones they want to try to play with first. If you want to make it a little more fun put the words into a hat and take turns drawing out of it after each game to give a sense of randomness to the players.

    How To Play Song Sync

    1. Go around the room in a circle giving everyone a chance to repeat song lyrics with your set word in them. If someone can’t think of a song then they sit out, repeat this until you have a winner. Be sure to have a set amount of time a player has to answer in as to not draw the game out for too long.
    2. Be sure to have a fact checker on hand like a phone or laptop to quickly google strange sounding lyrics. If a player is caught making up their own song then they are out of the game until you start again.  Be sure to use a site that checks all genres and not just the popular songs, you never know what music your potential friends may be into.
    3. Have fun with the game and be sure to ask questions about songs you’ve never heard before. To add an additional fun twist to the game you could even require the lyrics to be sung or said in the same tune as the song they are from.

    Winning The Game

    The game is based more on learning about someone’s music taste and sparking conversation than winning or losing. By naming different songs you will find out a lot about a potential friend’s personality and will have a great discussion point to start from. If you wanted to sprinkle some competitive elements into the game you can always add in small prizes like candy or inexpensive ribbons from a dollar store for the winner.

  • Magic Word Game

    Collect the most party favors from other people when they say your designated magic word – but be careful and make sure you don’t say the word yourself!

    Recommended ages:

    This activity is best for players who are ages 14 and up.

    Recommended number of people:

    Good for large groups of 12+ people.

    Materials required:

    For this game you will need various party favors for each person (or you can also use candy) as well as a list of “magic words.”  Words should be relatively commonly used to make the game more interesting. Words might include: “dog,” “cat,” “man,” “eat,” “boy,” “water,” etc.  For this game, good party favor items might include items like:

    • Bead necklaces, Hawaiian leis, or plastic sunglasses

    How to set up the game:

    Prepare your party favors/candy and list of magic words to be distributed upon the arrival of guests.

    How to play:

    1. As each person arrives, gives them a party favor and tell them what their magic word is. Make sure to instruct them not to use the word themselves. If everyone is already together, you can have people come up one by one to receive their party favor and magic word instead.
    2. Each person will go about the activities normally. If a player hears someone else use the magic word that was given to them, they may take the party favor of the other person. For example: If person #1 has the magic word “dog” and person #2 starts to talk about their pet dog, person #1 is allowed to take the party favor from person #2.
    3. Allow the game to continue throughout the entire party/event or else cut it off at a certain point in time. Whichever you choose, be sure to inform the participants about the choice so they will know when it stop playing the game. At the end of the game, count the number of party favors each player holds to determine the winner.Tip: You can penalize players who say their own magic word by making them give up one of their party favors to another player.

    Winning the game:

    The winner of the game is the one with the most party favors or candy by the time the game stops. Players can collect party favors from anyone involved in the game, even if they have already lost their own party favor, making this a fun way to battle to become the last man or woman standing. You can give away a small reward or prize if you choose to the winner of the game.  Have fun!

  • Hot and Cold Game

    The Hot and Cold game is a simple, crowd pleasing icebreaker game!  It gets the crowd going.  Simply choose a mystery action and have a volunteer try to figure it out.  The group cheers for them loudly when they are closer to doing the action and boos them when they are farther away.

    This game is best for ages 12+ and ideal for groups of 6+ people.  Large groups are okay.  Multiple groups can also play this simultaneously.

    Materials Required: No materials are required for this game, although you can use any props around the room that are available to you.

    How to set up the Hot and Cold Game:   You do not need to do anything to prepare for this game. All that’s needed is the group members themselves, although it may be wise to remove any unsafe objects that are present to keep players from using these during the game.

    How to play:

    1. Gather group members together in one room. It’s time to select the 1 or 2 people that are the “chosen players” for the first round. You can ask for volunteers or else choose the first players for yourself.
    2. Send the chosen players out of the room. Once they are out, have the group come up with an action they must perform when they come back into the room. Moderate this process to make sure an appropriate and safe action is chosen.
    3. Bring the chosen players back into the room and instruct them to try to figure out and do the mystery action. Other group members should be observing the chosen players and cheering or encouraging them when they are getting closer to doing the action (“hot”) and booing when they are getting farther from doing the action (“cold”). No words should be spoken by the group about the mystery action and no gestures should be used to indicate what needs to be done.
    4. The game is over once all the chosen players perform the mystery action. You may choose the next players by who was the most encouraging, who came up with the final action ideas, or any other criteria you see fit.

    Winning the game:

    Normally there is no winner or loser in this game as it is just a fun activity to help with group bonding.  Alternatively, you can divide the group into two or more sets of people with their own chosen player and mystery action. Set a timer and let the teams compete to see whose chosen player will complete their action first.  You can also time each chosen player to see how long it takes them to complete their mystery action. The one with the shortest time is the winner.

  • Animal Sounds

    Find the other person in the room with the same animal as you by making the noise your assigned animal makes!  Animal Sounds is a very simple icebreaker that gets people to act as animals to and find other of the same animals just by listening and making the specific animal sounds!

    This icebreaker is good for kids aged 6 and up.  Unless folks are young at heart, it is not as ideal for adults above 25 years old due to its animal silliness!  Animal Sounds is best for larger groups of 15+ people.

    Materials needed

    To play the Animal Sounds icebreaker, you will need:

    • Pieces of paper
    • 1 pen or pencil
    • Fabric blindfolds for each player in the game

    How to set up the game:

    Prepare the papers ahead of the game. Cut or tear the sheets of paper into small pieces. Write different types of animals that make distinctive sounds on each paper, making sure to duplicate each animal at least once. You should end up with lots of small papers with pairs of animals listed.

    How to play:

    1. Give each player a piece of paper with an animal listed. Make sure you only hand out an animal whose pair is given to someone else. Instruct players not to reveal what their animal is and to keep it a secret.
    2. Blindfold each player. Ask all the players to find their match, the other person with the same assigned animal as them, by only using the sounds which their animal makes. Players cannot speak, remove the blindfolds, or perform any actions other than moving around the room.
    3. Watch as the players try to find their matches. As different pairs of people find the correct match, check the papers they have to make sure they are actually the same animal. If not, send them back to the group to keep looking. Those who have found their pair should remove themselves from the game area to avoid further confusion. If time is a constraint, use a timer or stopwatch to make sure the game lasts for only a set amount of time.
    4. Make the game more interesting by choosing a wide variety of exotic animals and “common” animals that most people would know such as lions, baboons, blue whales, camels, elephants, and otherwise. The more variety, the more fun is had by players as they listen to the crazy noises going on around them!

    Winning the game:

    This is an icebreaker game that doesn’t necessarily have winners and losers. If you’d like to add a competitive edge to it you can rank players based on who finds their match first and give our rewards to the top 3 pairs.

  • Categories (or Similarities) Game

    Each team must find a certain amount of things they all have in common (similarities) before the other teams in this simple competitive icebreaker game.  It’s best for ages 8+.  It works great for medium sized groups, or even really large groups of 20+ people if you split into smaller sized groups.

    Materials needed

    You won’t need anything to play this game. If you’d like to make things more official, you can use a piece of paper and a writing utensil for each team to record their similarities on, although this is not necessary.

    How to set up the Categories (or Similarities) game:

    No setup is necessary to play the Similarities game!

    How to play:

    1. Divide your group up into separate teams of about 5 people each. Ideally you should end up with at least 4 different teams with a minimum of 4 people per team.
      Tip: Try to make teams of people that are not already close with each other. This makes the game more fun and serves as a great icebreaker for people to get introduced to one another!
    2. Instruct each team to talk amongst themselves and find out at least 6 things that every single group member has in common with the other members.
      Tip: You might consider not allowing teams to use simple things like physical height, hair color, current clothing items worn, etc. Limiting the similarities to non-physical things helps people to learn more about each other and engage in active, more meaningful conversations that will promote inclusion and lasting connections between team members.
    3. This game is played as a race and each team is competing to come up with their 6 similarities before the others. The game ends once every team has come up with 6 things they have in common, or once the time set aside for the game has expired.
    4. Alternative: If you’d like to play a quicker alternative, you can assemble the whole group and instruct them to form teams based on categories of things that they all have in common. This can include anything from favorite colors to least favorite movies and beyond. In this alternative, you can set the minimum size for each team in order for the activity to be over.

    Winning the game

    The winner of the regular version of the game is the team that most quickly identifies 6 similarities they all share. In the alternative game there is no real winner and it is used as a simple and quick icebreaker game for large groups.

  • Name Aerobics

    Name Aerobics is a simple icebreaker to help group members introduce themselves in a fun and energetic way!  You can think of it was a name memorization activity with a touch of aerobics.  It’s good for players ages 10+.  This activity works best with medium or large sized groups of 6+ people each.

    Materials required

    There are no required materials to play this game. You can play it anywhere with just the members of the group!  Indoors (such as in a classroom) may be the most ideal place to play.

    How to set up the game

    The ideal setup is to have all group members standing in a circle, but you can also have the individuals take turns coming in front to introduce themselves. Placing people in a circle may help those who are shy to feel easier about participating. This is the only setup needed for the game to be played.

    How to play Name Aerobics

    1. Ask for someone to volunteer to go first, or you as the host can start off the activity. The first person can either go to the center of the circle or else stay where they are, depending on your preference as the host.
    2. Ask the person to introduce themselves by their first and last name, but instruct them to make some sort of movement or do an action for each syllable of their name. For example: The name “Jonathan Smith” (Jon-a-than Smith) would require that person to make four distinct movements of their choice.
    3. Have each person in the group repeat the person’s name while also mimicking the actions they performed. Have the person repeat their name and actions as many times as it takes for most of the group to get it right before moving on to the next participant.
    4. The person to the right of the one making the introduction should go next until all participants have introduced themselves with a name and simultaneous actions.
    5. (Optional): After everyone has introduced themselves, quickly go through the group members from the first person again to make sure everyone remembers the names of the others.

    Winning the game

    This is an icebreaker game meant to help people become more familiar with each other; therefore, there are no winners and losers. If you want to create a competitive element, you can have a contest at the end to see who remembers the most combinations of names and “aerobics” that were performed. The one who can recite the most names and perform the correct movements is the winner.