Celebrity Charades (Icebreaker)

This super fun icebreaker gets people up, moving around and having a ton of fun. You will only need some pens and some sticky notes. Have a list of celebrity names prepared or have each member of the group write one down before you start the game. Just make sure you have one celebrities name on a sticky note for every person in your group.

Seat everyone in a semi-circle. Go around and place a sticky note on the forehead of each person so that their celebrity is known to all but them.

Start with the person to your left. You and others around the circle will offer hints as to who his or her celebrity is. You can make a statement, act out a behavior, or perform some famous lines that the person is known for. Each person has 1-2 minutes to give clues and to get him/her to say the correct celebrity. Go around the room until the person guesses the celebrity or everyone in the room had had a turn giving clues. Follow along until everyone has had a chance to guess their celebrity.

This a really fun game that requires very little prep work and will have everyone giggling, bonding and just having a great time! Perfect icebreaker for the first day but can be used to energize and/or unite a group any time!

Enjoy!

Lorie

The Group Press Conference (Icebreaker)

I love training games! They really are essential tools for the corporate trainer.

Press Conference is a great icebreaker, one of my favorites in fact. Here’s how to play:

Choose one person to be “it” and ask him to leave the room for 3-5 minutes.

The people remaining in the classroom decide who that person is going to be. For instance, they might choose someone like “Darth Vader”.

Once decided (take no more than 5 minutes to do so!) call the person back in to the room. Remember, they do not know who they are supposed to be. Have them sit at the front of the class and have participants each ask one question as if they are reporters.

For the Darth Vader character, example questions might be “Do you have respiratory problems?”, “How is your relationship with your family?”, “Are you sometimes violent or have a bad temper?”, “What is your favorite color?” The answers of course do not match what the character would say, but it will have everyone laughing and at ease in no time.

Stress to participants that the idea is not to give away who the person is supposed to be through the questions.

The game is over in one of two ways: When the person guesses correctly the game is over. If every participant has asked a question and the person has not guessed correctly, the game is over and a new person/character is selected.

The person can guess who they are supposed to be at any time during questioning.

This game will have everyone laughing and enjoying themselves!

Enjoy!

Lorie

Remember, my training cartoons are completely unique and perfectly suited for corporate and compliance training. See my library of training cartoons here at www.WorkplaceToons.com!

Crossword Puzzles!

The Crossword Game
Don’t forget the tried and true crossword puzzles! Here are some new takes on an old favorite.

If you are creative with words and want something everyone will participate in and learn from, then use crossword puzzles. They are certainly not new on the adult learning scene, yet crossword puzzles are a hit every time. Who doesn’t enjoy a crossword puzzle!?

You will need a whiteboard or chalkboard and the tools to write with. You can use a variation as well by printing and giving the crossword on paper to everyone and have them each try to solve it for 10 minutes.

The clues to the crossword puzzle should be about words that are relevant to the topic you are teaching your group. The clues can be questions, answers, etc. Look at a crossword puzzle in a book or your newspaper to get an idea of how to format the clues.

If you do it up on a board as a group effort, then just let them blurt out the answers, but only give out one clue at a time so no one jumps ahead.

If you do this individually, you let each person work on their puzzle for 10 minutes, then have them pass it to their left or right depending on your seating arrangement so that the next person tries to finish the crossword puzzle. Do this again every 5 minutes until all the crossword puzzles are completed.

People retain the things they have to figure out and that they write down. The crossword is a great tool to get them familiar with your topic and to give them the basic information they need to get started with the training you are about to do.

Enjoy!

A New Take on an Old Favorite! The Memory Game!

Trainers and students will have fun with this Memory Game. You will verbally present four questions to your students. You may choose to ask the questions consecutively and then begin the "memory" time or you may pause between questions and have the "memory" time following each question. This game is appropriate for any new group in the ‘getting-to-know-each-other’ phase.

To begin, decide which format (from above) of the game will be played. Each student will need one sheet of paper and pen. Instruct students NOT to write names or other identifying marks on the paper. Next, ask the following questions, one at a time, until all students have answered: (1) What is the strangest thing a customer has ever said to you? (2) What is your most unusual talent? (3) If you had to pick one adjective to describe you, what would it be? (4) What Country, State, City are you from?

Go around the room and have each student share their answers with the group aloud. Encourage respectful chatter, laughter, and a light tone. Make sure every student has a turn to share his or her answers out loud.

There are two ways to end the game. One: gather all papers, mix them up and draw one out at a time. Call out the answers and see if students can call out the correct person to whom the answers belong. Two: Post papers along the whiteboard and have students write their guess on each papers. Give them until the end of the day to put names on every paper. For example, let’s say Robert thinks a particular set of answers belongs to Jane. He would write something like, “This paper belongs to Jane by Robert.”

Right before breaking for the day’s session, quickly call out how many and who voted on each paper, have the owner identify him/herself and move on to the next until all students have identified their paper.

For the finale, see which student had the most correct answers and pass out a treat to one or all! Have fun!

Interactive content is a critical component of any adult learning program! For custom hand-drawn training cartoons on highly specialized topics, please visit my website at www.WorkplaceToons.com!

A Word that Best Describes Me (Icebreaker)

This game will help a new group of participants in learning each other’s names and a little bit about personalities too. Participants can remain at their workstations or you can get them to form a circle. You won't need any prep time or supplies. This icebreaker is very simple to run and is perfect for the first day.

You’ll start with a brief explanation of the game that goes something like this:

In this game we will go around the room and you will be introducing yourself by giving us your first name with an adjective in front of your name that you think best describes you. The key though is that the word that best describes you must start with the same letter as your first name.

As the instructor, you should probably go first to provide an actual example of how it’s done.

Let’s say your name is Hank. You would say, ‘Hi, I’m Happy Hank.’ Each person takes a turn then says a word they think best describes them followed by their name. The word must start with the same letter that their first name does. Here are some examples: Joyous Julie, Careful Chris, Outrageous Opal, Nervous Nancy.

You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to remember everyone’s name after this game! Now you can also play a more difficult version where each person has to repeat everyone’s name and associated word that came before him or her. If you really want to make it tricky, have each participant rattle off the name and descriptor for everyone who came before him/her.

Have fun and don't forget to check out my ever-growing library of hand drawn training cartoons at www.WorkplaceToons.com!

The Name & Gesture Icebreaker

This game is a lot of fun! There is room to modify as needed so use your imagination to create an icebreaker that engages and inspires your learners!As always with 'name games' this one works great for the first day of training to get to know each other, break the ice and have some fun.

First, you'll say your name and accompany your name with a gesture. You can hop on one leg, wave, hop, say woohoo, or whatever gesture you want.

Then you’ll point to someone and they must immediately say your name and repeat your gesture, then say their name and add a gesture. Then they point to someone who hasn’t been called on. That person repeats his or her name and gesture then does their own with a gesture and so on around the room until everyone has been called on.

You can add on to the game by pointing to someone and asking them what someone else’s name and gesture was to see if they remember. You can even score points when someone remembers. To increase to difficulty, have each person recall the name and gesture of everyone who came before them.

This icebreaker gets everyone up, laughing, energized and ready for the day. To add punch and pizazz to any presentation, check out my custom hand drawn training cartoons on topics like FMLA, Diversity, Sexual Harassment, WOrkplace Violence and more at www.WorkplaceToons.com.

Enjoy!

Icebreaker: Pointing out the Obvious

This icebreaker is intended to get people to understand how they are perceived by others and to demonstrate to all participants that what we think or assume about others may or may not be correct. Before you begin this exercise, be sure you stress to participants to be positive and not point out any negative or hurtful things to others. You'll need about 2-3 minutes per participant for this activity.

You start by seating everyone in a circle with one chair in the center. You choose who will go first or the instructor can go first. The first participant sits in the center chair.

You pick a starting point for round one and the first person in the circle has to say, “It is obvious that . . . “ and add something that is obvious about the participant in the middle. This must be obvious not an assumption, like “It is obvious that you are wearing a yellow shirt.” Then each person in the circle points out an obvious conclusion about the person in the center.

That ends round one. Round Two, the sentence must start out with, “I assume that . . . “ and then must add something they assume based on the “obvious” fact they pointed out in round one. Now they can say, “I assume that you like yellow.”

That ends round two and the fun round begins. In round three the sentence starts with, “I imagine that . . . “ and adds anything they think is a good guess about the person in the center. The person in the center is free to voice up at any time and say things like "Yes, that's right," or "No, that's not correct." Each person gets to be in the center once for three rounds.

This icebreaker teaches people in the center how they are perceived by others based on outward observations and teaches those in the circle how observations about people based upon what they see may or may not be true. This is a great inclusion and diversity exercise. Enjoy!

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Treasure Hunt Icebreaker

This is one of my favorite first-day icebreakers. I call it “Treasure Hunt”. However, it isn’t quite what you might think it is.

Ok, so every person has treasure. The purpose for this game is to find out what those treasures are and who has them.

You will need to set aside about 10 minutes for everyone to prepare. Start by instructing each person in the group that they will be preparing a list of ten items. Everyone's list should be different so they cannot work in groups at this stage.

Explain that the items to place on the list are not what you might find in a room but rather the characteristics of the people in it.

Provide examples of the type of things to place on the list: A person who has a college degree. A person who likes to write. A person who’s favorite color is blue. A person who’s favorite number is 6. A person who has their own website. Any human characteristic or quality is fair game. You should play too!

Now the real fun begins! Ideally, you should allow 15-20 minutes for this part. Instruct the group to mingle with each other and ask each other questions until they find a fit for an item on their list and get the person to sign their name by that item. The first person to complete their list gets the prize. I find chocolate or a free coffee works great!

And, of course, everyone actually wins in this game because they will have gotten to know each other better, shared a laugh or two and gotten comfortable speaking in front of and with each other!

Fun 5-minute Icebreaker for the 1st Day of Class

Here is an icebreaker I like to use on the first day of class. It is super easy to do and students really enjoy it as a way to get to know fun facts about each other. I call it Fact or Fiction. Enjoy!

Fact or Fiction
This is a great icebreaker for a group that doesn’t know each other. You will need index cards and pens or pencils. Each person gets an index card and is to write four things about themselves. One item needs to be fiction while the other three are fact> Instruct the participants to write them down in no particular order. The more outrageous the better.

Everyone turns their cards in and the trainer takes each card in turn and reads the four items about the person aloud. The group can discuss each item. The group then votes on which item they believe is fiction.

This game helps everyone get to know everyone else and lets them have a chance to be creative and sneaky. You'll get some laughs and get to know who the creative people are in your group as well!


More icebreakers to come! Check my blog often for training tips, site news and upcoming cartoon packs! Thanks for visiting!