Which of these high school first day ice-breakers is the best?

Question

Here are two ideas I have-

1. Last year I had the students select a monopoly game piece and describe three ways it related to them. They used things like "I am shoe because I love to buy shoes, I love to run, and I can put myself in others' shoes." This worked well, and they liked it.

2. I did this in a class in college and am not sure if they will think it is dumb. I was going to list the student names on a worksheet and they walk around the room to find every person on the sheet. That person has to say one thing about himself that he hasn't used already. For example, you can't say you like baseball twice. At the end, I go through the names one-by-one, and everyone has to say, one-by-one, what they learned about that person. For example, I say John. And we all list the one thing we learned about him. You all learn about 20 things about each student. Would a high schooler like this?

Or do you have another good idea? I know students hate all icebreakers, but I need to do at least one!

Answer 1

when i was in the 9th grade my math teacher played a game with us to remember all of our names. not what we liked to do or anything, and i found that i enjoyed this the most because i was pretty shy and couldnt ever think of anything to say about myself. im sure alot of students worry about the icebreaker games, especially the 'quiet ones.' im serious, i used to worry about it so much when i was younger! lol pretty dumb now! anyway the game went like this:

have them stand or sit in rows. start at one side of the room and for each persons name they have to say an object that starts with the same letter and repeat it until the last person has to say all of the names and objects. im horrible at explaining things, so heres an example:

1st person: janice-jelly

2nd person: janice-jelly, kelly kangaroo

3rd person: janice-jelly, kelly-kangaroo, sally-smarties

4th person: janice-jelly, kelly-kangaroo, sally-smarties, tim-trees

you can modify it to fit in with their personality traits or anything, but

i found this game to be pretty fun, and it actually made me remember everyone!

Answer 2

That sounds fun.

We had some wacky introduce-yourself games this year.

One was a name game, and my art teacher is Japanese and I couldn't pronounce his name correctly. How embarrasing.

In zoology we had an animal game. Thank God it wasn't a name game, cuz I don't think I can pronounce her name either. She stuck a piece of paper to our back and we had to walk around and ask everyone-"Do I have wings?", "How many legs do I have?" Haha, that was fun but weird.

Answer 3

I think your monopoly idea sounds great.

I'm an elementary school teacher and I do the find someone who game that you were talking about in #2 and I think it's too elementary for high schoolers.

Best of luck!

Answer 4

Pair the kids off randomly.

Have them chat with their partner about 3 min & then they have them intro their partner to the class.

Game 2 = they really don't get to know one another or chat that much

Game 1 = like the idea but maybe have them select a random article (any thing in their mind) & describe how it relates to them.  you'd get more creative & quality answers.

Answer 5

Stick with what works!  The Monopoly idea is fabulous and creative!  

I usually have my students write an interesting fact on a stickie note and fold it up.  I then pass out the folded piece of paper and we try to guess who's fact it is.  It's worked this well until this year.  I had students write down very strange, uncomfortable, and true information. (Ex. My brother died when I was 5.  I want to be a gynecologist.)  I think I might try the Monopoly idea next year.  Thanks!

I've also had my kids create a drawing to help the class and me remember their names.  For example, Catherine might draw a picture of a cat and and watermelon rind.  Cat Rind sounds like Catherine.  Dewayne might draw a picture of dew on grass and rain drops.  Dew Rain sounds like Dewayne.  This is a great activity for older students.  My younger middle school students had difficulty coming up with creative ideas, but your high schoolers should do well with it.  

Good Luck!  

Answer 6

I remember the f 2nd one from school and i hated it. i like the first one. I teach workshops for foster care teens and i think i will use it.