Large Group Icebreakers and Team Building Activities

Maria Corte shares her Top 4 large group ice breakers and team building activities! Check them out below!

Icebreaker activities are a great way for students’ to connect with their classmates and teachers! Creating a warm and friendly climate for your class is essential for your student’s success as well as the success of your program.  Making your class inviting and comfortable will not only give your students the confidence to perform well, it will also make you more familiar with your students to decrease any potential management issues.  The following are my top favorite middle school and high school icebreaker activities.

Rock Paper Scissors Tournament

Students pair up and throw R, P, S shoot.  The winner finds another winner, while the defeated student now cheers on the person that defeated them. This goes on until there are only two students left in the tournament.  Now you have half the class cheering for their “guy” and the other half of the class cheering for their “guy”.  It’s loud, it’s fun and it never fails!

Hint: When you get to the last two remaining students, the winner is now the best 2 out of 3.  

Favorites

Instruct your students to find other students with the same common interests or likes. The first common interest I use is their favorite COLOR.  Next, MONTH they were born and finally FRESHMAN, SOPHOMORE, JUNIOR OR SENIOR.  Once they have their group, they sit down in a circle and go around stating their name and grade. This is also can be a great middle school icebreaker as well.  (When doing the birth month, have them state their name and the DAY they were born)

Hint:  This activity allows the teacher to immediately identify students who will be leaders, followers, loud, shy, etc…

Partner Tag

Have students find a partner and decide who chases who.  Once the music starts, the student who is chasing will spin around three times before finding and catching their partner.  Once they catch or tag their partner, they reverse roles and the chaser now gets chased.
Next, have the partners’ pair up again, but this time link arms.  They will now pair up with another group of two linked partners, making it 2 on 2.  They repeat the above process, but must stay linked with their partner, even on the beginning spinning part.
Next, have the linked partners link arms with the linked partner(s) they were chasing making it 4 on 4.  They repeat the above process, but this time the chasers will only spin once. My students love this large group icebreaker game!

Team Juggling Name Game

Now that you have groups of 8 from the above Partner Tag game, have them get in a circle (standing) and give each group 3 tennis balls.  They will number off from 1-8 consecutively.  Now have the #1 student take one tennis ball and toss it to #2 student while saying their name and their #.  For example, Joey who is # 1 will say “Joey 1” before throwing it to the #2 student.  This will continue until the ball gets back to #1 student.  Now have the students mix up in the circle and stand next to two different people. Start with student #1 again and have them toss the ball consecutively.  Add another ball and then a third ball to make it more challenging.

Have fun with these large group Icebreaker activities! If you have any ideas of your own, please share them in the comment section below.