Category Archives: Icebreakers

Activities intended to help a group to begin the process of forming themselves into a team. Youth icebreakers are commonly presented as a game to warm up the group by helping the members to get to know each other.

Christmas Hoax

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Materials

None

Game Play
Each person in the group writes answers to four Christmas questions. Three of the answers are to be true and one is to be a hoax. Questions should center around Christmas.

For example, the following are suggested questions for Christmas:
1. What is the most unusual Christmas gift you ever received?
2. What is the most meaningful thing that happened to you during a Christmas Holiday?
3. What is your favorite Christmas food?
4. What is your favorite Christmas tradition or symbol?
ETC

Each individual reads his or her answers to the group. The others guess which one is a hoax. After all have guessed, the person tells which answer was the hoax.

Variation
Toss all the answers in a bowl and have people read the responses, guess the person and guess the answer which is a hoax.


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Games and Activities in Celebration of common Holidays.

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Christmas Sign-Up

christmasbow2.jpgMaterials
List of items for each person

Find someone to sign his or her name for each item on a list. You can ask a person only one question. If the answer is no, you must go to someone else before returning to this person with another question. If the answer is yes, have the person sign your list next to the item. After 10 minutes, the person with the most names is declared the winner.

Examples:
I have more fun giving than receiving gifts at Christmas
I love candy canes
I’d rather have ham than turkey at Christmas
I placed the star on our Christmas Tree
I sent someone a Christmas card
I sat on Santa’s lap as a kid
I have a Christmas stocking
I like snow
I have an artificial Christmas tree in my home
I don’t mind getting clothes as Christmas gifts
I like to go Christmas caroling
I can recite the first two lines of “the Night before Christmas”
ETC. ADD YOUR OWN


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Games and Activities in Celebration of common Holidays.

Creative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.

=> Tell me more about the Holiday Collection

Christmas Carol Sing-a-long

Materials
A list of Christmas Carols written in groups of two or more on slips of paper.
(see Christmas Carol Pictionary for a list of some common Christmas Carols and songs.

Activity
1. Write the names of the Christmas songs on individual slips of paper (There should be at least 2 slips for each song or more–More is good for larger groups and more difficult).
2. Then put as many slips of songs as you have people in a bag and mix them up really good.
3. Let each person draw a slip of paper out. They are not allowed to show it to anyone.
4. They must begin humming the song on their slip of paper when you say “go”.

The objective of the game is to locate the other person(s) humming the same song that you are humming. When the partners find everyone in their group they hold hands and begin to sing the words to their song!


Get Creative Youth Ideas: "Holiday Collection" ebook Holiday Collection
Games and Activities in Celebration of common Holidays.

Creative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.

=> Tell me more about the Holiday Collection

Christmas Card Puzzler

Materials
Christmas Cards (2 copies of each card)

Activity
Use this as an icebreaker / crowdbreaker to divide your youth into teams at a Christmas Party:
1. Select the front panels of several Christmas with different pictures and cut them into pieces. Use 2 identical Christmas cards for each group. Each group will have a different card.
2. Cut one of the 2 identical cards into pieces. The number of pieces is determined by the number of people you want to have on each team.
3. Write a question on the back of each piece. Questions should be along the lines of: “What is your favorite part of the Christmas Story?”, “What is the most meaningful Christmas Gift you ever received?”, etc.
4. The other uncut card is placed on the wall or at each table so that youth will be able to find their group later by comparing their pieces with the visible cards.
5. One good idea is the keep the peices of each individual card separate until needed. Once everyone has arrived, place the necessary number of cards based on the number of people in a bag and mix them up.
6. When each person enters the room they are given a piece of the cards that have been cut into jigsaw puzzles, with the question at the back of each. The objective of the game is to ask people the question found on the puzzle piece and find the rest of the people whose pieces combine to form 1 card.
7. Youth may only reveal their puzzle peice after they have answered the questions. They then test to see if the peices fit together. If they do then they stay together and find other people to ask questions and check. Once the puzzle is completely solved, only then are participants allowed to find out their respective table or location to group together by matching the picture of the puzzle with the uncut version.


Get Creative Youth Ideas: "Holiday Collection" ebook Holiday Collection
Games and Activities in Celebration of common Holidays.

Creative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.

=> Tell me more about the Holiday Collection

Candy Teams

candy.jpg
Materials

Several types of candy so that youth can be divided into equal teams according to the candy they recieve. If you want 5 teams then have 5 different times of candy.

Activity
When your students arrive give them each just one peice of candy from among your selections. To divide them into teams, announce “Team Green M&M” in the fron right corner” Team marshmellows in another corner.. etc.

Get Icebreakers ebookIcebreakers Ahead: Take It To the Next Level

This 170 page resource not only provides 52 of the world’s most popular group icebreaker activities and games, but also includes lesson ideas and discussion questions to smoothly transition into conversations about the issues common to most groups.

Click here to find out how to get your hands on this incredible resource!

Incredible Word Puzzles

I love these creative puzzles. They are so much fun for youth and adults alike. They make wonderful icebreakers and fillers for youth meetings. Here is one example of hundreds of such puzzles which you can find on the site below.

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Can you guess the answer?

Of course the answer is: Sermon ON the Mount.

Click Here for more incredible puzzles.

Get Icebreakers ebookIcebreakers Ahead: Take It To the Next Level

This 170 page resource not only provides 52 of the world’s most popular group icebreaker activities and games, but also includes lesson ideas and discussion questions to smoothly transition into conversations about the issues common to most groups.

Click here to find out how to get your hands on this incredible resource!

We Doubt It

question.jpgMaterials
Form two teams to play

Activity
1. Each person one a team is given a chance to tell the opposing team something about his / herself. They may choose to say something that is true or something that is false. For example, someone could say, “My favorite food is my mom’s fried chicken” or “I went to the school swimming meet on Friday night.”
2. The other team will try to guess if the person is telling the truth. If they think he/she is lying, they’ll say, “We doubt it.” If they think he / she is telling the truth, they’ll say, “We believe you.”
3. If the person sharing the info fools the opposing team, his/her team gets a point. If the other team guesses correctly, it gets a point.
4. Alternate teams until each person has had a chance to tell something about themselves.
5. Tally the score, and declare a winner.

Debrief
* What was it like to try to guess if someone was telling the truth?
* How is this similar to real life situations?

Read the story John 20:24-31 then ask:
* How is this game like trying to decide whether to believe what Jesus says? How is it different?
* What are some things that you have doubted in the Bible? About God?
* What are some of your doubts?
* Are doubts good or bad?

Application
Doubting Thomas exemplifies an honest seeker that asks for solid evidence before belief. Jesus did not reject his questioning, instead He met his questions head-on and provided the evidence Thomas needed to believe. We see in scripture that God does not reject honest and sincere seeking after the truth. If some obstruction occurs in our trust and relationship with God that impedes progress, then God does give us room to ask questions. The issue that remains is how do we go about seeking after the truth.

Get Icebreakers ebookIcebreakers Ahead: Take It To the Next Level

This 170 page resource not only provides 52 of the world’s most popular group icebreaker activities and games, but also includes lesson ideas and discussion questions to smoothly transition into conversations about the issues common to most groups.

Click here to find out how to get your hands on this incredible resource!

Running the Race?

Description
This activity can be used as an icebreaker or discussion starter on living the Christian life.  In the Bible, Paul frequently illustrated the Christian lifestyle as being similar to running in a race.  It’s ties in nicely to an Olympics theme as well a general sports related theme.

Materials
None

Activity
Give youth / kids different sports below to pantomime. Let the rest of the group guess the sports.

Baseball Basketball Bobsledding
Bowling Boxing Canoeing
Chess Cross-country Skiing Darts
Diving Downhill Skiing
Football Figure Skating Golf
Gymnastics Horseshoes Ice Hockey
Kayaking Luge Ping-pong
Rapelling River Rafting Rock Climbing
Horseshoes Rugby Ski Jump
Slalom Soccer Speedskating
Swimming Tennis Track & Field
Volleyball Waterpolo Wrestling
Others?

Discussion
Ask each youth what sport best describes his/her spiritual life and why.

Application
Paul compared his life to that of a race. He leaves everything behind and presses toward the goal, the finish line. (Phil 3:12 – 16 )


Get "Destined to Win" Youth Bible Study SeriesDestined to Win
Need a Youth Camp/ Bible Study Series on “Running the Christian Race”?

Our “Destined to Win” series is a great follow up for youth who are new Christians or to emphasize the basics of our spiritual Journey in the Faith. This Bible Study / Camp Curriculum / Small Group Study has a sports theme and is great for athletes and works well as a tie in to the Olympics.
->Tell me about “Destined to Win”

Get Icebreakers ebookIcebreakers Ahead: Take It To the Next Level

This 170 page resource not only provides 52 of the world’s most popular group icebreaker activities and games, but also includes lesson ideas and discussion questions to smoothly transition into conversations about the issues common to most groups.

Click here to find out how to get your hands on this incredible resource!

Balloon Pop

balloons.jpgMaterials
1 balloon for each expected participant.

Activity
Everyone must write one piece of information about themselves on a small strip of paper and place it in a balloon. They then blow up the balloon and throw the balloon in the center of the circle of participants. One by one, participants select a balloon, pop it, and try to guess which participant matches the piece of information.

Get Icebreakers ebookIcebreakers Ahead: Take It To the Next Level

This 170 page resource not only provides 52 of the world’s most popular group icebreaker activities and games, but also includes lesson ideas and discussion questions to smoothly transition into conversations about the issues common to most groups.

Click here to find out how to get your hands on this incredible resource!

Who Am I?

Materials
One slip of paper for each child containing a name of a famous cartoon character, movie star or character from a movie, Bible character, or historical figure; adhesive tape

Activity
As children/ youth enter the room, tape one of the nametags on their back. By asking “yes” or “no” questions youth must discover their identity as indicated by the slip of paper. You may restrict the number of questions they can ask a single person in order to encourage them to mingle more.

Variation
If you use an equal number of cartoon characters, movie personalities, etc. you can use these categories to divide the participants into groups.

Teaching Point
We learn the identity of God as we take our questions to him. The admonition of the preacher in Ecclesiastes 3:16-22 is that as children of God we need not have all the answers to life in order to live. Because we have a God who is a soveriegn Lord, we can trust him completely for our future. We can live our lives one day at a time, facing the perplexities as they come without falling into dispair. We can ask our questions of God as he is not threatened by them.

Get Icebreakers ebookIcebreakers Ahead: Take It To the Next Level

This 170 page resource not only provides 52 of the world’s most popular group icebreaker activities and games, but also includes lesson ideas and discussion questions to smoothly transition into conversations about the issues common to most groups.

Click here to find out how to get your hands on this incredible resource!