Looking for a good ice breaker/introduction game to play with my students.

Question

First day of school is wednesday for my kids. I will have 4th through 8th grade. Each class only runs 25 min. because of the scheduling. What are some good ice breakers or introduction games the kids and/or pre teens would like. The older grades wont play corny games and the younger grades have to be able to participate (nothing to advanced) Any suggestions!?

Answer 1

Something I have used with my middle school kids is ice breaker bingo.  I make a bingo card that has something different in each box.  Some examples:  "I went to the beach this summer."  "I have blonde hair."  "I have met someone famous."  Then, the kids have to go around the room and fill up their card.  It helps the kids to make connections with each other and learn things they may not have known about each other.

Hope it helps!

Answer 2

For two years, I did two truths and a lie with my 4th and 5th graders. It worked well. I need to find a good icebreaker too because I am supposed to be teaching even smaller kids this year.  

Answer 3

I thought all of the above ideas were great.  Here's one thing I do with my kids.  I work in a very small school and the kids know each other quite well already & I know most of their names.  After doing this activity they know even more about each other.  

I divide the kids up into groups of three or four.  They take a piece of paper (I use a large one - maybe half the size of a poster board) and draw a box in the middle.  Then they draw lines out from the box to the edge dividing the paper into the number of sections of kids in the group.  

Each child gets one of the outer sections to write or draw three (or five - depends on age, time, etc.) things about themselves that are unique to them in the group.  That's harder that you realize because you have to be very specific to not match any of the other group members.  The inner box is for 3 - 5 words or pictures that all of the group members have in common.

Once each group is finished, we share and post them on the wall.

Another idea I learned over teh summer which would especially be good for science teachers is for the kids to create "tree cookies" for their lives - a cross-section of a tree.  Thick rings signify good years, bumps on the growth ring indicate specific difficulties, etc.

Answer 4

i remember in elementary school, we did this thing where we had to introduce ourselves by using a descriptive word that began with the same letter as our first name. "amazing alicia, brilliant brittany" we stood in a circle and say "i am amazing alicia and i like...___________" i think i said animals or something. but it has to start with the same letter. it is interesting and a good way to get t know your class mates.

the trick is that you have to repeat what the person before you said.

Example: Hi Brilliant Brittany who likes Bananas, I am Amazing Alicia and I like Animals.

i think this would work for the 4th graders and 5th graders, but it might be kind of cheesy for the older kids.

Answer 5

Back to school so soon?  Wow--I've got another month.

I like to give the kids a piece of paper and have them number from 1-6 then ask a question for each number.  Questions are like--How many siblings do you have?  What is one thing you did over the summer?  etc.  Then I read the answers to the class and let them guess who wrote it.  This works well especially when the kids know each other from the previous year.

Answer 6

Snow ball fight:

1.  Have students write down three interesting facts about themselves.

2. They ball them up and throw them across the room.

3. Everyone picks one up and opens it

4. The object is to find the author

(The kids love it!)