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Canva, Piktochart, etc... have students share 3 pictures from their summer/lives and share

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Resources, supplies, crisis information, etc. Rock Paper Scissors / competitions to complete. Goosechase is a technology option.

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Have students share information with you and then find a way to strike up a conversation and talk about what is of interest to them.

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Keep it clean, but have students create and share a rap...upgrade: YouTube it!

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Write down student names on a color coded notecard and have them sitting at their desk - helps seat students and helps the teacher get to know students.

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Just in a brown paper bag the student will put 4-5 SMALL items that represent them as a person! Ex: key chain basketball, music note, little book, and a cupcake. They will sit in a circle and explain the items and why it represents them! It is a good way for teachers to share with the students about themselves too.

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Have students stand. Ask questions like... Coke or Pepsi? and have them go to a specific part of the room according to their preferences.

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As part of taking attendance the first week, ask students an either-or question, i.e. "cats or dogs", "mountain or beach". Make note of their answer. It also helps identify the interesting characters who answer with a third choice.

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Have a piece of paper with a table drawn out on it. Have each individual fill out the third space (or whichever you prefer) with a word (make sure you set up guidelines). Everyone passes their paper to the right and fills out the next word - they have 5 seconds to do so. Continue doing this until the paper is filled out. Share out.

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Write "get to know you" questions, "would you rather" questions, etc. on a blow up beach ball. Have students stand in a circle and toss back and forth, you can have more than one beach ball moving at a time. Gets students up and moving.
http://morethanelementary.blogspot.com/2011/08/getting-to-know-you-activity-with-beach.html

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-pictures
-education
-welcome video
-NOT personal facebook
-NOT personal cellphone
-YES school email
...what would you add?

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Create a bingo chart that has specific "get to know you topics." For example: has 2 sisters, loves the chiefs, been to Europe, etc.

Have students walk around the room and have them play bingo by finding individuals who fall under these categories/.

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Make printable and virtual bingo cards

Make your own bingo cards with this free, simple app. Our bingo card generator randomizes your words or numbers to make unique, great looking bingo cards. Watch a demo.

To make customized 1-75 or 1-90 number bingo cards please use our 1-75 Bingo Generator or our 1-90 Bingo Generator.

Next Step "

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myfreebingocards.com - free custom bingo card generator

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Create randomized printable and virtual bingo cards for free in seconds with our bingo card generator. You can customize the title, background and content.

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Give students a map of the US (or world) and have them mark three places that mean something special. Turn and share. LHS New Teacher 2017-2018 get to know you activity.

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You can use this idea for writing something about yourself with each letter of the alphabet. Classroom extension, consider using this strategy to highlight important concepts you are studying.

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Gamestorming is a set of co-creation tools used by innovators around the world. Get the playbook. Subscribe for news, tips and tools. Contact us.

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Our homepage and the perfect place to start your search for some amazing conversation questions to start an engaging conversation.

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Provide students with opportunities to work together and solve problems.

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These are popular word picture puzzles with hidden meanings to solve from the pictogram. These are called rebus puzzles. What is a rebus puzzle?

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Android and iPhones unite! It is time for a Scavenger Hunt!

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Inspired by scavenger hunts, Goosechase is an online platform that helps you create interactive experiences.
Get started

Quick to set up,easy to play

Create your
Experience

Set up in just a few clicks!

Add
Missions

Make your own or choose from ours

Invite your
participants

Take part in teams or as individuals

It's GOose
time

Participants complete Missions in the app

Track live
results

View stats and participant engagement

Create your
Experience

Set up in just a few clicks!

Track live
results

View stats and participant engagement

Add
Missions

Make your own or choose from ours

It's GOose
time

Participants complete Missions in the app

Invite your
participants

Take part in teams or as individuals

How people useGoosechase

One-of-a-kind experiences to easily activate communities

Integrate Goosechase into your next festival, fundraiser, or community event to help raise awareness and have fun for participants of all ages.
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Team Engagement and Record-breaking Fundraising

Take 5 Oil Change uses Goosechase at over 600 locations nationwide to run award-winning employee engagement, training, and fundraising programs.
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Try it now for free

What's better than a demo? Access to the full platform! Build and run a game today. Create as many missions as you can muster, invite up to 3 teams, and see how easy Goosechase is to use, by easily using it.

Copyright © 2023 GooseChase Adventures Inc.

Copyright © 2023 GooseChase Adventures Inc.

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The Original Interactive Experiences App | Goosechase

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Inspired by scavenger hunts, Goosechase is an online platform that helps you run real-world interactive experiences for your communities. Try it today for free!

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Give students a choice... would you rather ___ or ___ and have them move to opposite ends of the room. Discuss why the preference in choice.

Would you rather be on winter break or spring break?

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How to Play
This icebreaker has students informally debate on light topics such as "Which animal makes a better pet...dog or cat?" Students have to choose a position, then physically move to the side of the room that most closely represents their opinion-one side means dogs, the other side means cats-and then talk about

(From a 2016 LPS New Teacher)

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Students use a web tool or app to create a video, comic strip, poster, book, or slideshow that includes the following: 3 things we should know about you, 2 hobbies, 1 dream job. This idea came from Nicky Hockly.

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Students choose one of the Mobile Show and Tell images to recreate as a group. Share the original and the newly created photo.

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"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." by Plato
Included in the Digital Ideas Advent Calendar with a new idea each day!

Throughout my teaching years, I've struggled with getting my students or trainees to readily participate. Learners are shy about exposing themselves to peers, especially if they do not know them well. Icebreakers can help alleviate our learners' hesitation, because they relax the atmosphere, allow learners to share without the pressure of being graded, and help our learners get to know each other. In the slide presentation below I share some digital icebreakers I have used with learners of various ages. Find more in the bookmarks that follow the presentation. Find some of these icebreakers and other digital activities in my ebook, Learning to Go, which is currently $5.99. Learning to Go also contains editable handouts and rubrics that are mobile-friendly.

Icebreakers

Here are a few of the ideas I talked about during my presentation:

Mobile Show and Tell- Divide students into small groups (3 to 5 students). Each student spends about 30 seconds sharing a personal photo from a mobile device and the anecdote behind the photo.

Recreate a Photo- Students choose one of the Mobile Show and Tell images to recreate as a group. They share the original then the newly created photo.

Selfie Adventures- Pair students or divide them into small groups. Show them the Animal Selfies Tumblr or the Selfie Animal Tips video. They choose a favorite and write down reasons they liked this selfie. Then give each pair a stuffed animal, doll, character, or sock puppet. They will have to create 2 or more awesome selfies of this character.

Draw and Dash- Each student will need to use a piece of paper or a drawing app like Tackk, Educreations, Magic Paintbrush, or Sketchbook Express. Name a category like favorite dessert, cartoon, sports team and so forth for students to draw the answers to on their tablets. Give them 30 seconds. When the time is up they should lift up their drawings and run to a peer they believe drew a similar choice. Give them 1 minute to talk about their drawings and exchange one fact or experience related to the choice. Find the Knowledge Swap handout that accompanies this activity in Learning to Go.

Mobile Me Pictionary- Give each student 3 notecards. Students write on one side a category like a talent, hobby, dream job, or favorite place. On the other side they write down an answer but show no one. Divide students into small groups. Each group will need to use a drawing app like Tackk, Educreations, Magic Paintbrush, or Sketchbook Express. Students stack all the cards with the categories facing up. When you start the timer, one student chooses a card and draws the word(s) on the app. The group tries to guess the answer and who it describes before the time runs out.

Avatar Bucket Lists- Students write down 3 activities they want to complete within their lifetime. They get into pairs and discuss their lists. They choose one bucket list activity to animate in a short video or comic strip. Useful web tools include GoAnimate, Powtoons, Little Bird Tales, ToonDoo, and Makebeliefs Comix. Useful apps include BuddyPoke 3D Avatar Creator, Tellagami, Drawing Cartoons, Comics Head, and Friendstrip. Find more activities and ideas in this lesson plan I wrote, A Visual Bucket List.

Goal Collages/Vision Boards- Students can use digital poster and scrapbook tools and apps to create goal collages and vision boards. In the poster they include learning goals, personal goals, inspiring images, motivational quotes, and sayings to support them in achieving their goals. Try any of these tools: Buncee, Tackk, Biteslides, Smore, ThingLink, or Pic-Collage.

3, 2,1 Introduction- Students use a web tool or app to create a video, comic strip, poster, book, or slideshow that includes the following: 3 things we should know about you, 2 hobbies, 1 dream job. This idea came from Nicky Hockly.

Avatar Introductions- Students can introduce themselves with a Voki avatar or try one of these free avatar creators! Find several student examples here.

Name Poems- Use a word cloud tool like Tagxedo or the Image Chef app. They can also do this as a digital poster using tools like Buncee, Tackk, Biteslides, Smore, ThingLink, or Pic-Collage.

My Timeline- Students create multimedia timelines highlighting significant moments using a tool like Capzles or Popplet which both have free apps for i-devices.

Icebreaker Mingle- Find my lesson plan that uses the Icebreaker question app here.

If you have icebreaker handouts like Human Bingo, use Nearpod (accessible on any device) to get students to fill them out digitally. Download my Human Bingo handout here.

Challenge:

Try any of these icebreakers with your students to motivate them to share throughout the year.
If you enjoyed these ideas, you may want to get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachers or my $5.99 ebook, Learning to Go, which has digital/mobile activities for any device and editable/printable handouts and rubrics. Subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!
More Resources

Find many more ideas, apps, and tools in my Pearltree bookmarks. Click the box to enlarge that resource.
Included in the Digital Ideas Advent Calendar! Scroll the image below and each day discover free web tools, apps, and resources.

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Pump Students Up with Digital Icebreakers

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"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." by Plato Included in the Digital Ideas Advent Calendar with a new idea each day! Throughout my teaching years, I've struggled with getting my students or trainees to readily participate.

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Share or create social media profiles. This is a great place to create success criteria for what makes a compelling profile.

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Everyone receives a coin. Look at the year on the coin and tell one thing that happened to you in that year.

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Two people engage in RPS by throwing quick rounds. Best 2 of 3 wins. Loser becomes the winner's cheerleader and they quickly look for the next contender.

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Gets kids moving. Think Bingo-type card where you find people who have accomplished what is listed in the box and initial or sign.

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Great for shy kids

Create 5-10 questions each student answers independently. Walk around to introduce self and find someone who has something in common.

Everyone shares out one thing they learned about a connection made.

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Have all students stand.

Sit down if you were born in September

Sit down if you have blue eyes

Sit down if you are the youngest child

What questions would you add?

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SEE THE END OF THIS POST FOR INSTRUCTIONS ON DOING THESE ICEBREAKERS REMOTELY.
We're coming up fast on the beginning of another school year. That means a new batch of students to get to know, students who need to be made comfortable in your classroom, and who need to get to know each other. It's essential to start building relationships with your students right from the start.

And how to accomplish this? Icebreakers.

The Trouble with Most Icebreakers

I planned to create a nice big post with dozens of icebreaker ideas you could choose from. I would scour the Internet for the very best activities and games and store links to them here for your reference. The problem is that so many of the ones I've found are problematic for one of these reasons:

They require students to take massive social risks with people they barely know. So many of the icebreakers I found asked students to publicly share some kind of personal information. For the icebreaker to actually work, students would need to share something interesting and different about themselves, something that makes them stand out. But to most kids-especially once they get into the middle and high school range-being different is the worst thing you can be. So what many students ultimately do is share something safe and boring, something like "I like soccer," just so the game moves on to the next person. The result? No one really gets to know anyone.

They don't actually facilitate familiarity. Too many icebreakers consist of questions like this: "If you could be an animal, what animal would you be?" Unless you have a ridiculously deep and creative kid who is going to say something like, "I would be a mongoose, because a mongoose can kill venomous snakes, and I have a way of standing up to bullies even though I'm small," you're mostly going to get a lot of cat-cat-dog-dog-fish, et cetera. Unless of course you force creativity on them by insisting that no animals can be repeated, thereby making the poor kids try to come up with some stinking animal that somehow represents the least embarrassing aspect of their personality and isn't a repeat of anyone else's animal. I'm annoyed just writing about it, and I repeat: No one really gets to know anyone.

They are cheesy. The icebreaker I have been subjected to most often is the "Name Game," where you have to add a word to your name that starts with the same letter as your name AND tells something about you. Guh. Because my name starts with a J, I have always hated this game, because jazzy doesn't have anything to do with me. Neither does jelly or jalopy or joyful. Once you've chosen your word, people have to go around the circle repeating the newly enhanced names of the classmates who came before them in line. This means having to listen to Jammin' Jenn over and over, my eyes rolling, my grimace deepening. One year I just rebelled and picked a different letter; I think I called myself something like Indoor Jenn, due to my aversion to the outdoors. That felt better.

So I have scrapped my plan to curate good icebreakers from the Internet. Instead, I'm going to share my three favorites with you.

Three Icebreakers that Don't Suck

In my own classrooms, with middle school, high school, and college students, I have played all three of these games with great success. What I like about all of them is that they get students talking, but require very little social risk. Each activity supplies students with real topics to talk about, topics that actually help students get to know each other, without forcing anyone to reveal anything too personal.

Each of these will likely sound familiar to you, although the names may not be exactly what you've known them as. I should add that I take no credit for inventing these games. I have no idea where I picked them up, but they are not original to me.

Blobs and Lines

In this icebreaker, students are prompted to either line up in some particular order (by birthday, for example) or gather in "blobs" based on something they have in common (similar shoes, for example). What's great about this game is that it helps students quickly discover things they have in common. It's also ridiculously easy: Students don't have to come up with anything clever, and they can respond to every question without thinking too hard about it. This game keeps students moving and talking, and it builds a sense of belonging and community in your classroom.

Here are some sample prompts you can use for this game:

Line up in alphabetical order by your first names.

Line up in alphabetical order by your last names.

Gather with people who have the same favorite video game as you.

Line up in order of your birthdays, from January 1 through December 31.

Line up in order of how many languages you speak.

Gather with people who have the same favorite season as you.

Concentric Circles

This icebreaker has students arrange themselves in an inside circle and an outside circle, the inside facing out, forming pairs. Pairs discuss their answers to a getting-to-know-you question, then rotate for the next question, forming a new partnership. This game gives students the chance to have lots of one-on-one conversations with many of their classmates and helps them quickly feel more at home in your class.

The possibilities for questions in this kind of configuration are endless; be sure to use more open-ended questions that can get students talking, rather than those that simply ask for a yes or no answer. Here are some sample questions:

Do you play any sports? If so, which ones?

Do you consider yourself shy or outgoing? Why?

What was the last movie you saw? Did you like it?

Describe your perfect dinner.

What is one thing you're good at?

This or That

This icebreaker has students informally debate on light topics such as "Which animal makes a better pet...dog or cat?" Students have to choose a position, then physically move to the side of the room that most closely represents their opinion-one side means dogs, the other side means cats-and then talk about why they chose that spot. This game has always been a HUGE hit with any group I've ever taught: It builds student confidence with talking in front of their peers, it helps students quickly find kindred spirits, and it's also just a lot of fun.

Sample questions for This or That:

Would you rather live in the country or the city?

Would you rather be indoors or outdoors?

Which is better: Playing sports or watching sports?

Would you rather travel every single day or never leave home?

Want These Games Ready-Made?

I have created beautiful, animated PowerPoint versions of each of these games, plus a bundle of all three. The files work on Windows, Mac, and Google Slides, and they are all editable, so you can add or change questions anytime you like.

What About Remote Learning?

These instructions outline how to play these games using PowerPoint or Google Slides for the questions and Zoom for videoconferencing. If you are using different software you can probably still adapt the process to your own platforms.

IF YOU ARE TEACHING IN PERSON, students will likely have to be socially distanced and can't play these games as they would pre-COVID. My recommendation is that you create an Avatar Classroom on a Google Slide, then have students "move" around with their Avatars, but still talk from their desks. You could also just follow the remote instructions above and have everyone plugged into devices so they could talk in breakout rooms, etc. It may seem to defeat the purpose of being in school together, but students can still look across the room at each other while participating - I think it would be pretty fun.

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Too many icebreakers require students to take massive social risks with people they barely know. Or they don't really help students get to know each other. Or they are just plain cheesy. Here are three that are actually good.