Icebreaker games for young children

Here are some more get-to-know you game ideas. It comes with a playing board, one die, pawns, and cards. Set Up: Set up the playing board and ask each player to choose their favorite color pawn. Shuffle the cards and place them in the designated space on the board. How to Play: Each player will take a turn rolling the die and moving their pawn to the correct number of spaces on the board.

When they land on a space they must follow the directions, such as burp out loud a certain amount of times or tickle the person on their left. Perhaps they will get to move forward, or they will have to move back one space or two on the board. You can make the game more exciting by asking the person to elaborate on their answers. This game works great with a group of kids 8 years and older, even the teens will like this game.

Set Up: Split everyone up into teams of 5 or 6 people per team. Appoint one person to be the caller. How to Play: Once the teams are ready the caller should call out instructions to the teams. Check out our other line-up and transition games and ideas. Set Up: Associate each color of the candy with a meaning. Ask them to grab some from the bowl.

How many they have in their hand will be the number of facts they will have to tell. For each blue one they have, they must tell a fact about their family, for each green they must tell a fact about their school and so on until everyone has completed all the facts. Each box should list a personal statement such as: has red hair, has short hair, is wearing a short sleeve shirt, etc. Mix things up on each bingo card. How to Play: Every player should walk around the room and find the name of each person to match the personal statement.

Only one person can be used per card. The idea is to fill up the card with a different name on each space.

The game can be over when the cards are full, or you can ask one person to be the caller at the end who will then call out each name randomly. The players will cross the names off of their cards just like the game bingo until the first person gets four in a row.

Set Up: All the children should sit on the floor in a circle facing each other. How to Play: This game is played like the alphabet game , but this time you will be using the first letter of your name. One person will start by saying their name and a food that begins with the same letter as their name. The next person will repeat what the first person says and then add their own. The next person will then repeat the first two in order and then add their own.

Play will continue until the last person says each one in order and ends with their own. If you want more of a challenge you can eliminate each person who gets it wrong and the last person to say them all without making a mistake will win the game. Check out our other circle games. Set Up: Everyone should stand in a circle facing each other. One person will start with holding the ball. How to Play: The person holding the ball will say a name of someone in the group and toss the ball to that person.

That person must catch the ball without dropping it. The play will continue with each person receiving and tossing the ball once. You can play until each person has a turn without the worry of dropping the ball to make it easier when there are smaller children involved.

What You Will Need: This game can be purchased from Amazon and it provides a box full of cards with great topics that can be used as conversation starters around the table. Set Up: Everyone can sit on the floor in a circle or around the table. Place the box of cards in the middle for everyone to reach. How to Play: You can play this game in many different ways, but one way you could play is to pass the box around allowing each person to take out a card on their turn and answer the question.

You could also deal five cards to each person and take turns around the table answering one question at a time. When the turn is over they can discard and draw a new card so they always have five. You might also consider incorporating these topics into some of the other games on our list. Set Up: Split the group up into small teams and supply them with the materials they will need to build their creations.

How to Play: Each team will be allotted an amount of time to work together in constructing a certain creation with a limited amount of unusual materials. For an example, you might provide each team with a box of spaghetti and a bag of marshmallows and ask them to build the tallest tower.

There are no right or wrong responses. The other players have to raise their hand if they already had done the certain thing and gain a point. Every little kid has their favorite animal. But how many kids in your group have the same favorite animal? In this game, ask each kid to think of their favorite animal. Then, they must make the sound of that animal. As the kids make animal noises, they must join together with other kids in their group to make the identical sound. Some youngsters may be nervous about this at first, but after a while, your group will erupt in a cacophony of wild animal sounds.

This delightful animal game gets kids active and silly, allowing them to get rid of their first-day nerves and feel at ease with one another. Children and icebreakers go hand in hand.

We all know kids enjoy playing games, but we also know they love to make new friends. What better way than through a fun game? These will help them get to know one another as well as the adults participating too! Here's our list of the top 10 best icebreaker games to start a conversation without making things awkward.

When you begin a discussion with someone, you want it to be interesting, insightful, and entertaining. Fun Icebreaker Games Here's our list of the top 10 best icebreaker games to start a conversation without making things awkward. Conversation Starters. Hula-hoop groups can tag only one player at a time. This medium-energy game helps you talk about leading and following. Have kids make a train, holding the shoulders of the child in front of them. After the five seconds, he or she becomes the caboose and the second child takes a turn.

Then he or she becomes the caboose. Play continues with kids adding new actions until all the kids have had a turn and the train is performing all the actions. Have kids stand shoulder to shoulder in a circle facing inward.

Choose one child to be the Tapper. The Tapper will walk around the circle once, tapping all the children on the back once, except for one person whom the Tapper taps twice. After tapping each child, the Tapper joins the circle.

Play and repeat with new Tappers as time allows. Play a version of tag where half the kids are Freezers and the other half are Unfreezers. The Freezers tag others to freeze them in place.

Unfreezers tag frozen kids to unfreeze them. Play as time allows. Switch roles halfway through your allotted time. Have kids form pairs and line up at one end of the room. Place half the balloons on one end of the room and the other half on the opposite end of the room. Explain that pairs will race back and forth together between the walls, each time adding a balloon to carry between them until they have all six balloons— in a certain order.

Have kids wash their hands and then sit at a table. Place one toothpick into a marshmallow, and place it in the center of the table. Choose one child to start. He or she will connect a marshmallow and toothpick to the original ones, add- ing to the structure. Start the timer. The person to the left will add to the structure. Play continues around the table until everyone has added to it.

Ask kids to say positive and encouraging things as kids add to the building. After everyone has had a turn, stop the timer and allow time for kids to admire their results.

Then let them try again and see if they can improve the building and their time. Say: Building this structure is like how we encourage our friends.