The goal of icebreaker games, as the name implies, is to help break the ice and ease the tension when new people are introduced into a group, or when a group of team members are all, in fact, new. Depending on the size of the group, as well as what the group is put together to accomplish as far as work, you may have an easier or harder time breaking the ice. However, with icebreaker games and group games, the task of making everyone comfortable enough with each other to start talking and thinking as a coherent group get a whole lot easier.
A successful icebreaker game will make it easy for everyone to get to know a little something about each person, even if it is just their name. The easiest game to start off with is the bean bag game. The person throwing the bean bag says the name of the person he’s throwing it to, then that person tosses it to someone else and says their name, etc. Once everyone is comfortable with one beanbag, toss in another one and see what happens!
This game is popular and successful for two main reasons. One, the physical action of throwing and catching the beanbag is fun, and it gets everyone moving around and active. And when someone throws awkwardly or doesn’t catch the beanbag, people will start to laugh. Once a handful of people are laughing together, they have truly started to become a group. And two, everyone who is participating now knows what everyone’s name is and won’t be forgetting their names anytime soon because they have this game to remember them by.
This is only one example of an icebreaker game that would be helpful in creating a sense of being a group and breaking the ice for the new members. There are many other icebreaker games that are helpful in a lot of other ways, but a successful icebreaker game should above all, be fun!
No related posts.
