General Icebreakers / Energisers

GENERAL ICE-BREAKERS / ENERGISERS

Warm up-Icebreakers

All Change!

Ask participants to arrange their chairs in a circle. As the facilitator, stand in the centre of the circle. Explain that the object of the game is to sit down or remain sitting but that individuals must change seats when the facilitator’s statement is true for them. Call out a number of statements e.g.,

All change if you’re wearing black shoes!
All change if you’ve ever dyed your hair!
All change if you’ve seen a named film!
All change if you’re single!
All change if you’re male!

Are you Alert?

Materials Required: Tray with 30 random objects, worksheet for each participant.

Prior to the workshop, prepare a tray of 30 unrelated items and cover the tray. Inform the participants that they will have 1 minute to look at and remember the objects on a tray. Uncover the tray for 1 minute and cover again once the time is up. Distribute a worksheet with 30 rows to each participant. Ask participants to write down the items they remembered. Allow 3 minutes to do this. Ask individuals to state the number of items that they remembered. The highest score wins. Ask the participant with the highest score to call out his or her list. Offer a prize for the winner.

Alternatively, before disclosing the highest scores, give participants the option to pair up with one other random participant (assuming you have an even number). Explain to them that they will incur a penalty of 3 if they do join up and that they will share the prize if they win.

Slapper!

Ask participants to kneel on the ground in a tight circle with shoulders almost touching and place both hands on the floor in front of them. Then ask them to hook arms around the elbow of the people on either side of them, so that their left hand is in front of the person to their left and their right hand is in front of the person to their right – the two hands in front of each participant should now belong to the participants on either side of them. Instruct participants as follows:

Slap the ground with one hand, and moving in a circle clockwise, each hand slaps the ground in turn. Allow this to continue for a few rounds so that everyone has understood the game. Explain that if someone does not slap the ground when it is their turn or if they slap out of turn, they must put the hand behind their back and take it out of the game.
One at a time, introduce new rules giving each one a chance to develop before introducing the next one: Two slaps of the ground causes the direction of rotation to reverse.
No-one can ‘two slap’ if someone has ‘two slapped’ in the last three rounds.
Speed up the game

The last person left with two hands in the game is declared the winner.

Human Knot

Divide participants into groups of 6-8 and ask them to stand in a tight circle facing each other. Instruct participants to close their eyes, put their arms out in front of them and to grab two other hands from the circle. Whenever everyone has two hands, they should open their eyes. The group must now un-knot itself without breaking any hands.

Continue: Topic Specific Icebreakers

Working with groups