7 Fun & Easy Ice Breakers to Jazz Up Your Event

Ice breakers are a great way to get a group of people interacting and connected. But sometimes as the leader, it can be hard to find some quick ways to do them. I know this first hand. You don’t always have an hour or more for ice breakers or team building. So, I’m all about the easy ice breakers.

You need something that can be done within 5-15 min span. This is why I have come up with 7 easy ice breakers. I hope this post is helpful and gets those creative juices flowing!

If you would like to check out some quick team building games. Please check out my post: 6 QUICK TEAM BUILDING GAMES TO ENERGIZE YOUR TEAM

And if you are curious on how they can benefit you next meeting check out: Icebreakers Help Create a Rich Learning Atmosphere

Questions to ask Before you Plan your Icebreakers

Having a clear goal for your ice breaker will help you have a purpose and keep you focused. Examples could be…

• Do you want people to meet each other?
• Do you want people to engage with other groups or departments or engage with other leaders?

Keep it simple. You don’t have to have an elaborate ice breaker for people to connect. When it’s simple people can understand it easily. This cuts back on time trying to explain things over and over again.

Now let’s get to fun stuff!

7 Fun & Easy Ice Breakers

One Minute Please! (Small or Large Group)

• Depending on the size of your group you can either break them up in groups or play all together.
• The goal of the game is to talk for one minute on a given subject.
  You pick and announce the topic and a member of the group is randomly selected to speak for one minute.
• Set the timer on for 1 minute for each person to see how long they last before drying up!
• Really try to think out of the box when getting topics. This will great a fun eniviroment where everyone can let their guards down.

Two Truths and a Lie (Small or Large Group)

• Everyone is asked to share two truths and one false fact about themselves and the group has to guess which one is the lie.
• Your team can tally points as each person goes up and the one who get the most right wins.
• This is a great ice breaker for people to get to know each other better. .

Beach Ball (small to mid-size group)

Note: You can play with a large group but you may need two beach balls and break up into two groups.

• Purchase a beach ball or if you already have one SCORE!
• Write out a list of “getting to know you” type of questions like:
  – What would be the most amazing adventure to go on?
  – What game or movie world would you most like to live in?
  – What’s your favorite genre of book or movie?
• Grab a sharpie and write on a beach ball all the questions you have come up with. Ask the team member to get into a circle and toss the ball to someone. When that person catches the ball, ask them to read the question closest to their left thumb aloud and answer it — once they are done, they pass it to another person.

The one-word Icebreaker game (Small or Large Group)

• Break the group up into small groups of four or five people. Ask them a question like “What is one word would you use to describe our company/group/ministry?” Give each team a few minutes to come up with their answers.
• Before picking the “one word”, have the teams discuss among themselves. Then it’s time to ask each team to share their answers with everyone.
• You can do this a few different times with different questions. This can even get your team brain storming for a certain topic or just a fun way to get creative juices flwoing.

Find 10 Things in Common: (Small or Large Group)

• Break up into groups of 5 or so
• Each group must find ten things that they have in common with each other.
• Important Rule* No cop-outs such as body parts are not allowed. “Ohhh…look we all have arms!! What are the chances of that!” <– That’s not going to fly!

M&M Ice Breaker (Small or Large Group)

• Break up the group into smaller groups
• Grab a bag of M&M’s and pass out a single M&M to each person.
• Whatever color the person gets means that they have to answer a specific question about themselves.
• The best part of this game is well….everyone gets to eat chocolate! SCORE!

Supermarket (Mid-size to Large Group)

• Divide the group into two teams, organized into two parallel lines.
• Pick a leader or you can be the game master and say “I’m going to the supermarket to buy something that starts with the letter…(pick a letter).”
• The first person to say an item that begins with that letter wins that round. The winner goes to the end of their line and the other person sits out for the rest of the game.
• The game continues with a new letter for each match-up until all the players on one team are eliminated.

That’s it for now…

I hope these fun & easy ice breakers take your event up a notch. It’s really nice to have some fun creative time before starting. It helps everyone relax and connect. If you are looking for some quick team building games don’t forget to check out the post below! Happy Ice Breaking!