Tips:
Be enthusiastic—whatever happens, be enthusiastic!
Choose volunteers carefully to make your groups comfortable and at ease.
Timing is important, if an activity isn’t working, move on to the next one.
Choose icebreakers appropriate for your age group
Introductory Games:

My Name Is?
Go around the group and ask each person to say their name using the first letter of their name, attach an adjective that describes one of their dominant characteristics and starts with the same letter as their name. Example: Generous George, Joking Jim, Sentimental Sally. Write these names down and refer to them by this name for the rest of the event.

Conversations
Each person is given a sheet of paper with a series of instructions to follow. This is a great starting mixer and conversation starter as each person much speak to everyone else. Some sample instructions:

• Count the number of blue-eyed girls in room
• Find out who had the longest drive
• What’s the weirdest thing anyone has eaten?
• What is your most embarrassing experience?
• Who knows what “Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia’ is a fear of? (Fear of long words… not big hippos!)

Group Team Building Activities

Stepping Toward Your Future
Goal: To get every person from the team across the game board. ( You can keep time to see which team can get across more quickly!)

Begin with a large, gridded game board on the floor. On a piece of paper, have a matching grid with a path marked; be sure the participants don’t see the path. Have participants line up at the starting side of the game board. The first person can step on any block they want and the game leader will tell them if they “stepped on a stone” or “fell in the river”. If the person missed the stone, then they must step off of the game board and start over. When participants step on a stone they cannot mark it in any way and must guess where the next stone is. Only one person can be touching the game board at a time.


The Questions Web
For this activity you’ll need a ball of string. Ask everyone to stand in a circle; the group leader will hold the ball of string and throw the ball of string to one of the participants in the circle. Choose a question to ask  the person holding the ball; once the person has answered the question, they then throw the ball of string to another person, while holding onto the string to create a web.
At the end of the game you could comment that the team all played a part in creating the web and if one person was gone it would look different—on the same note it’s important that we all take part to make the group unique and special.
Sample questions:

• If you had a time machine that would only work once, what point in the future or in history would you visit?
• If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
• If your house was burning down, what three objects would you try to save?
• If you could talk to any one person now living, who would it be and why?
• If you had to give up one of your senses (hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting) which would it be, and why?
• What is one thing you really like about yourself?
• Name a gift you’ll never forget.
• Were you named after someone special?
• What is the best thing that has happened to you this past week?
• What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

People Bingo
This one is great for new groups. Make a five-by-four grid on a piece of paper and copies for everyone in your group. Each box should contain one of the statements below (suggestions, get creative and make your own!). Encourage the group to mix, talk to everyone and try to complete their card. If one of the items listed on the bingo card relates to someone they’re talking with, have them sign their name in that bingo box. Give participants about ten minutes to mingle, and then call time and review some of the interesting facts the group has discovered about each other.

• Has brown eyes
• Plays basketball
• Shows pigs
• Loves to ski
• Is wearing yellow
• Knows what a CIDR is
• Likes to get up early
• Someone whose favorite TV show is Walker Texas Ranger
• Someone over six feet tall
• Loves cattle dogs
• Is scared of the dark