Archives by: Alex Hogendoorn

Small Group Icebreaker Game –
A classic – everyone writes a word/name on a piece of paper, folds it and drops it in a hat. One person takes all those names and then reads them through three times (in a different order to be fair.) He/she selects one person to begin. They ask, “Fred, are you ‘frying pan’?” Fred isn’t, so he then asks, “Jill, are you ‘Tiny Tim'” And she is, so she becomes Fred’s assistant (sits at his feet) and helps him try to accumulate the whole group. You guess again if you are right. If you capture someone with slaves/assistants, you acquire the slaves as well. Good for group meetings under 20 large, but larger than 6 or so.

Small Group Icebreaker Game –
Everyone writes one fact about themselves that they think nobody will be able to guess. Fold the papers and drop them in a hat and redistribute them (nobody can have their own.)
The first person reads their paper aloud (you pick who that will be) and they try to guess who that person is…and warn people that handwriting is very telling! If they guess correctly they acquire that person as a slave. The slave hands the captor their paper and they try to capture the next person together. If you guess incorrectly, the person you guessed gets the next turn. If you capture a slave owner, you win the slaves as well.
ONE GLITCH: It is possible to capture someone looking for your name before the game is over. If that happens, anyone capturing their own “fact paper” is safe and hopes they end up with the largest group in the end. Pick someone to start the guessing again.

Living room game for 10-25 kids –
Have enough seats for everyone except one. The seatless person then calls out a description of people in the room – “Everyone in grade 10”. Those matching the description have to get out of their seat and find another seat, and the caller tries to get into a seat as well leaving a new odd-man-out. The goal of the game is to get four members of your team (usually girlz vs. boyz) on the couch. (Some contact will occur.)
RULES FOR CALLING: You cannot call visible characteristics like “Everyone wearing blue”. Instead call, “everyone whose mother is over 50”.

You cannot make a call that isolates one person alone.

Have fun and use a sturdy couch.

Small group icebreaker game – 10+ people

(If your group has mastered Four on the Couch, try this game – a tad bit trickier.)

Everyone sits in a circle with one vacant chair remaining. Everyone draws a paper from a hat–these papers have the names of everyone in the room. Show no one your paper! Have all the girls cross their legs (Black team – X) and all the guys uncross their legs (white team. – U) The person to the right of the vacant chair calls out a name. Whoever has that name on their paper moves to take the vacant seat and switches names with the person who called them.

When they take this seat they may capture members from the other team (like in OTHELLO the board game.) See below:
U X U (X) X U <-- in this situation (X) sat in the vacant chair. The 2nd U to her left is trapped because he finds himself stuck between two X's (or crossed's). U X U U U U U (X) <-- in this situation (X) sat in the vacant chair and captured the entire run of U's between her and the next X. U X U U ( ) U (X) X <-- in this situation nobody is captured because the vacant seat that (X) left behind acts like the edge of the board. All captured people/pieces must change teams by crossing or uncrossing their legs. The game is over when one team is left with 0 or 1 players.