The Trainers Blog

Communication Icebreaker

Name of Icebreaker: Birthdays

Category of Icebreaker: Communication

Time Scales:  2 - 20 Minutes (Depending on Size of Group)

Size of Group: 10+ 

Materials Required:  None

Aim of Icebreaker:  To test the group’s ability to communicate with each other non-verbally and to achieve the task as a team.

Pre-Organisation

None

Process

1. Explain to your group that they are to get themselves in birth date order (emphasizing date) forming one long line with the beginning of the year at the front of the room. 
2. They need to ensure that you are in exactly the right order.
3. However, they are not allowed to speak to each other at all.  They need to communicate non verbally.
4. Give them a set time to complete the exercise in, depending on the group size.  It should take them about 2 minutes with 10 people.

Conclusion

This game identifies the need to communicate and the need to work as a team.  You may also identify leaders within the group who will take over organizing people and the differing personalities.

Discussion Points: How did they communicate?      

What did they find hard?

Did someone check to see if they were all correct?

How did the team work together?

Happy Training!

P.S Share your experiences of running this icebreaker here!

An Icebreaker / Energizer - Not for the faint hearted!

Name of Icebreaker: Going to the Races

Category of Icebreaker : Energizer

Time Scales: 10 Minutes

Size of Group:  5 +

Materials Required None: Just know your actions!

Aim of Icebreaker: To energize the group and have a bit of fun!!

Please Note: This icebreaker is not for the faint hearted!

Pre-Organisation
Prepare your script and make sure you remember your actions.  You can make your script up as you go along.

Process

1. Find a clear space and ask your group to stand up and form a circle and face inwards.
2. Explain that they are going to be participating within a horse racing event and that you just need to explain the rules and the course to them.
3. You are the commentator and all the team are jockeys on their imaginary horses– all the jockeys must stand with knees together and bent.
4. When they are racing round the track you are commentating on what is happening (it is good to do the actions as well so they can follow you)
5. The different commands that you will say in your script are in bold.
6. Go through each of the following commands and practise the actions.

Icebreaker for Team Building and Motivation

Name of Icebreaker :  Sunshine

Category of Icebreaker  :  Motivation and Team Building

Time Scales  :  10 Minutes + (Depending on number in team)

Size of Group  : Unlimited  This Icebreaker can be used in many group sizes from 1: 1 to 100+.  If you do have more than 20 then split your teams into groups of no more than 20. 

Materials Required  :  A4 Paper and Pen per team member

Aim of the Icebreaker  :  This Icebreaker helps to boost confidence and motivation of every team member.  It helps to bring the team together, boost morale and team spirit and encourages each of them to feel valued within their team.

 Pre-Organisation

None

 Process

1. Give each team member a piece of paper and a pen and ask them to write their name in the middle of it. 
2. Then ask them to draw a sunshine around their name with the number of lines to match the number of team members in the group, including themselves.  
3. Each team member then passes their sunshine to the person on their right and that team member will write something positive about that person on one of the lines. 
4. That team member then passes the sunshine to the person on their right and so on.
5. The sunshines are passed around the team anti clockwise until the whole team has written something positive on each sunshine about every team member. 
6. Once completed the sunshine is passed back to their owner and they write something positive about themselves.  (You can miss this part out but I feel this encourages self confidence and awareness and encourages every team member to also appreciate themselves as well as everyone else).
7. Every team member then reads out their sunshine to the rest of the group.

 Conclusion

This is a really rewarding icebreaker and helps create a wonderful positive atmosphere within the team and your training room.  It helps not only boost self confidence and motivation but also increases team spirit, team bonding and team motivation.

You could display the sunshines in the staff room or by the team members desks / work station to give them a constant reminder of how great they are.

 Variation

This icebreaker could be used within 1:1’s, interviews and appraisals where the individual completes the sunshine themselves or the Manager completes it for them.

 

A Great Icebreaker for 1:1 Situations

My husband asked me last week,

 

 “Philly, I have a days consultancy with a new client and I need an Icebreaker that will help us get to know each other quickly and build rapport quickly, can you find one for me please?”

 

Here’s the Icebreaker I chose....

 

 

Name of Icebreaker : Acronyms

 

Category of Icebreaker  :  Further Introductions

 

Time Scales  :  10 Minutes

 

Size of Group  :  Unlimited. Can be used in all group sizes from 1: 1 to 1000’s in your training room.

 

Materials Required  :  Flipchart Paper and Pens

 

Aim of Icebreaker:  To encourage creativity with the use of words enabling each team member to describe their personality.

 

Pre-Organisation

None

 

Process

1.   Give each team member a piece of flipchart paper or a standard piece of paper.

2.   Ask them to write their name vertically down the left hand side of the page. 

3.  Then ask each of them come up with a word that describes their personality for each letter of their name. 

 

 

For example:

 

P - PROFESSIONAL   

H- HAPPY

I - INTELLIGENT

L - LOVING

I – IRRESISTIBLE ;-)

P - POSITIVE

P - PRACTICAL

A – AMUSING

 

4.  Then ask the group to present their acronym back to the rest of the group.

5.    You could also ask them to explain why they have chosen those particular words.

 

Variations

• You can ask them to do their middle names and surname as well if you want to.
• If you have more than one trainee, rather than each individual doing their own, to encourage teamwork and boost bonding, you can ask them to come up with words for each other.
• Alternatively you can choose any word for them to turn into an acronym, for example: a fruit, an animal, a subject that they have covered.

Conclusion

This icebreaker gets your group thinking and being creative with words.  It helps you get to know the personality of the other trainees quickly.  Lots of fun can be had doing this icebreaker.

 

Happy Training! :-)

 

Icebreaker for Events

Anagrams

Make up anagrams of the participants' names and either:

Display as pairs on a flip chart (for finding pre-allocated partners and groups),

or

Use them on name plates (for pre-arranged seating).

Great Brain Teaser....

Here's a Brain Teaser for you to use in your training room...

Ask everyone in the group to:

1. Pick a number between 1 and 10 and keep it secret.
2. Multiply this number by 9.
3. If this number has 2 digits, add them together.
4. Subtract 5 from this number.
5. Equate this result to a letter of the alphabet (1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C etc).
6. Think of a country begining with that letter.
7. Think of an animal begining with the second letter of that country.

Finally ask ‘How many people were thinking of a grey elephant in Denmark?’

Great Icebreaker For All Ages and Can Be Used For All Topics!

Name of Icebreaker:  Biscuit Tin

Category of Icebreaker:  Communication

Time Scales:   20 Minutes

Size of Group:   10 +

Materials Required:   Empty Biscuit Tin, Strips of paper, stopwatch & pens

Aim of Icebreaker:   To encourage participation and teamwork within the group and to enhance communication skills

Pre-Organisation: None

Process
Give each team member 6 strips of blank paper and ask them to write a different famous person on each one.  They must then fold the piece of paper twice so will not fall open easily.  Once they have all done this, they put their pieces of paper into the biscuit tin.  You must then split the group in to teams of 5 or 6 and the teams are to sit together.  One person in Team A starts.  You start the stopwatch. 

The first person has to pick a strip of paper out of the tin and explain to their own team who that person is without saying their name. Once their team has guessed that person correctly then they put that strip of person to the side and take out another piece and explains again who that person is.  When one minute is up you shout STOP and the biscuit tin is passed to Team B.  If a team member does not know who the person is on the piece of paper then they can put it back folded into the tin.  They are only allowed to do this 3 x per go.  You must be keep score of the number of correct guesses each team has and the winning team is the team with the highest score.

Conclusion
This exercise will energize the group and encourage communication between team members.  You need to be a strict judge and that you keep an eye on when the stopwatch reaches one minute and to ensure that there is no cheating!!

Variations
You could use this game as a consolidation of the session where you write on the pieces of paper a word or a new tool that they have learnt and they have guess what you are trying to explain.

A Motivating Icebreaker For you... Sunshine! :-)

A Wonderful Motivating Icebreaker for you....

Name of Icebreaker: Sunshine

Category of Icebreaker: Motivation

Time Scales: 10 Minutes

Size of Group:  Unlimited

Materials Required: A4 Paper and Pen

Aim of Icebreaker:  To increase positivity, motivation and boost self confidence within a team.

Pre-Organisation:  None

Process
Give each team member a piece of paper and a pen and ask them to write their name in the middle of it.  They are then to draw a sunshine around their name with the number of lines to match the number of team members in the group.  

The sunshine is then passed around the group anti-clockwise and each team member will write something positive about that person on a line.  Each team member passes round their sunshine.

Conclusion
This game ends once every person has written on every sunshine.  This will help to boost the confidence for every team member encouraging them to feel valued in their team.

An Introduction Icebreaker For You....

Introductions

Category of Icebreaker:    Introductions

Time Scales:                    Depends on Group Size

Size of Group:                  Unlimited

Materials Required:           Packet of sweets M&M’s

Aim of Icebreaker: To have a bit of fun and getting the delegates to introduces themselves within the group.
    
Pre-Organisation
None

Process
Pass around a large bag of M&M’s.
Tell the participants to take as many as they want but try to make sure they do not eat them before counting them.

Once all the participant have M&M’s, tell them that for each M&M they took they have to reveal one thing about themselves.  For instance, if a participant took 10 M&M’s, they would have to say 10 things about themselves.  They can cover work or personal information.

Conclusion
This exercise allows the group to get to know each other and more facts about each other.
N.B Please be aware of any food allergies

Alterations:  I have also played this with a roll of toilet tissue! :-)

A Great Icebreaker Game....

Name of Icebreaker:  Long Lost Friend

Category of Icebreaker:  Communication

Time Scales: 5 Minutes

Size of Group: Unlimited

Materials Required: None

Aim of Icebreaker: To create an understanding of how people should greet and communicate with others in different situations and how they should read others reactions.

Pre-Organisation

None

Process

Split the group into pairs and ask them to turn to their partner and greet them as they would normally greet someone they were meeting for the first time.  After 2 minutes, ask the group to turn to their partner again and greet them as though they do not want to be in the session and they want to be anywhere else but sitting next to them and talking to them.

Tell them that they can exaggerate their greetings as much as they wish.

After a further 2 minutes, ask everyone to greet their partner as though they are their long lost friend who they haven’t seen for absolutely years and they are so excited that they have had the chance to see them again.

After another 2 minutes, ask the group to now greet their partner as though their partner has just heard some really sad news.

 

After 2 more minutes, ask the group to now greet their partner as if they have just told you that you have won $10 billion in the lottery! You are over the moon!!

 

Now bring the group back together and run through the following discussion points:

Take scenario 1 and ask these questions

 

• How were they greeted in each scenario? (Go through the scenarios)

•

How did they feel when they were being greeted in this scenario?

 

•

What reactions did they have towards their partner when they were being greeted?

 

Then repeat the questions for the rest of the scenarios.

Then discuss:

•

Why is it important to choose your style of greeting style to meet the different situation?

 

Conclusion

You can use this icebreaker at any stage in your session. It helps to create an understanding of different situations and how people should react in each circumstance. This exercise is good to bring into communication sessions.

 

For more Icebreakers go to

http://www.icebreakersfortraining.com