More Ice Breakers | PopEd Toolkit

More Ice Breakers

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Ice breaking Whip	Time: 10 minutes
Why use it?	To get people's initial impressions about a subject
What you need
How it's done	Popular misconceptions on this topic are... Things in my daily life that hold me back from acting are... What can one person do... What could my group / family / neighbourhood do... What gives me hope...
Variation:
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Ground Rules	Time: 10 minutes
Why use it?	A group exercise using consensus decision making to draw up a set of ground rules for the group)
What you need
How it's done	explain purpose. What kind of behaviour will help things. How do you expect to treat others, how do you expect to be treated. brainstorm ideas. Feel free to add underline points of contention Circle ground rules which have not been underlined go through and confirm or delete each rule by agreement until you have come up with a workable set for the group Feedback and Discussion To examine the basis on which we make assumptions about other people.
Variation:	10 Negotiating Ground Rules Playing with Fire, p84
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Crossword	Time: 15 minutes
Why use it?
What you need
How it's done	Facilitators Ask the facilitators to come to the front of the room. Add names consecutively, linked like a cross word puzzle and a brief story or explanation about why you like your name.. When the facilitators are finished ask them to return to their sub-group Participants the facilitators lead the crossword with their sub-group starting with their name and with participants repeating the process above.
Variation:
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Other Light and Livelies

My Bonnie

This is an exercises to raise the groups energy and attention. The group must sing the following song, and for every "O" in the song, they must either sit down or stand up. The song is :My bOnnie lies Over the Ocean, my bOnnie lies Over the sea, my bOnnie lies Over the Ocean sO bring back my bOnnie to me, bring back bring back, Oh bring back my bOnnie tO me. Repeat as many as three times, going faster each time. You can also do this with the "B"'s rather than the "O"'s.

Rainstorm

The facilitator in the centre of the circle directs, rubbing his/her hands together and turning slowly toward everyone in the circle. Everyone should imitate the facilitator as s/he faces them. The facilitator completes the circle eight times in this order: the first time, turn around lightly rubbing your hands together, the second time snap your fingers until you have completed the circle again, the third time slap your thighs, the fourth time slap thighs and stamp feet, the fifth time return to just slapping your thighs, the sixth time, back to snapping fingers, the seventh time back to rubbing your hands and finally turn in silence. The rainstorm is over.

Chemical Soup

There are just enough seats in the circle for everyone except you. You assign names of chemicals on a list you have made (e.g.. ozone, chlorine, CFC's, Halons) in such a way that there are at least three people having the name of each chemical. Then call out one chemical and those having that name swap seats. When a person is able to sit down in one of the seats before another participant does, that person then becomes leader and goes on calling names of the chemicals. If s/he calls "Chemical Soup" then everyone must change seats.

Pattern Ball

You will need four to six balls (rolled up socks work well) for this exercise. First get everyone to raise one hand. Tell everyone that all that they need to remember is who they got the ball from and who they threw it to. Then throw the ball to someone who has raised their hand, and have them do the same until everyone has been passed the ball. When the last person has received the ball, have him/her throw it back to the facilitator who started it. Repeat the pattern a number of times with one ball and then slowly introduce the other ones. End off the exercise by slowly taking the balls out of circulation.