Children get bored. As educator’s it is imperative to our students success that we find ways to keep children engaged and excited about learning.
Icebreakers are an excellent way to break up long lessons in a class and redirect students when they are starting to get side tracked. As a teacher how are you suppose to know when your students will need a Brain Break?
Purpose: This blog was a way to use class time to create a virtual resource binder so I can efficiently flip through my work and find the perfect ice breaker to fit my students needs.
Materials: Choosing more ice breaks that do not require any set up is how I managed to collect a video of instant classroom activities
Benefits: Students learn to regulate their learning to avoid getting overwhelmed. These activities are a great way to teach students to ask for breaks. Each Icebreaker also fits into different aspects of student learning so students can remain on task while still getting up and letting loose.
Ms. Johnson’s Virtual Resource Binder
Find the Activities below for an in depth how to teach: All linked on this blog
This first ice breaker is a FUN CHALLENGE to do with your students! The purpose of this activity is to have the students work together to untangle themselves!!!!
Adaptions:
challenge the students to complete this task without talking! This is a great way to practice nonverbal communication
have two smaller circle of students and see which group gets untangled first
have one student volunteer to be the leader. Only that student can talk, everyone else must use nonverbal ques and follow the direction of the student leader. After 30 seconds call switch and the student directly to the left of the leader becomes the new leader and only they can talk. This is a great way to allow students to practice taking charge and work on following directions from a fellow classmate! Give every student a chance to lead!!!!
Ensure students know it is not a competition within their group. They are working as a team! At the end of the activity ask each group to share how many words it took the ENTIRE group to guess every object in the bag! No singling kids out!
Randomize the groups so students are working with students they may not normally team up with! Consider drawing straws or rolling a dice so the kids know the groups are 100% random.
Pick objects you know the students will be comfortable describing.
Adaptions of the senses:
**** See: have the students act out objects instead of describing them
*** Touch: have the students blindfolded and guess by using their hands to feel the object. Consider weight and texture
** Smell/taste: Use food items and have the students blindly smell and taste the object to try to guess what it is. Try using a candy with many flavors and then the students can guess which flavor it is!
COMBINE THESE ACTIVITIES FOR ULTIMATE GUESS THAT OBJECT
The first student in the group pulls an object from the bag and verbally describes it to the second student in the team
Once the second student guesses the object they are passed the bag with just the teams object in it. The second person then assists the third person in the team on guessing what the object is while blindfolded. The students can not talk to each other so they need to touch the object to guess what it is!
Once the third student guesses the object correctly they can take off the blindfold. They will then assist the last person in the team on guessing the object using taste! (Use a new piece of the food item that entire group has not been touching to reduce germs but make sure it is the same product everyone else guessed!)
You can have multiple groups in the classroom doing this relay activity and the first to have every station finished wins!
Students will all walk around the room reciting the alphabet as a group until the teacher yells STOP. (quite yell please there are other classes learning beside you)
All the students will gather in a circle repeating the letter we stopped on until everyone is in the circle.
Once in a circle the students will answer the first question written on the board: What is your favorite animal but the answer must start with the letter we stopped on. Use describing words to achieve this, ie: little rabbits for L if the students favorite animal is a rabbit.
Continue playing for the next 4 questions:
What is your favorite sport/activity?
What is your favorite colour?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What is one thing that scares you?
NAME AEROBICS:
This next ice breaker is a fun activity for younger students who are just learning the alphabet but feel comfortable spelling their own name!!!
created on canva
This game is an excellent way to have students work on the alphabet while also learning the names of fellow classmates! The silly actions are a FUN way to help students REMEMBER and having the students repeat each letter is a great way to PRACTICE saying letters of the alphabit
ADAPTIONS:
instead of saying their names students could say a phrase answering a morning prompt like “what did you do this weekend?” for each SYLLABLE the students would create a new action. This is a fun way to practice breaking short sentences into syllables!!! GO SKI ING (this student would have 3 actions)
Instead of doing an action the students could say one descriptive word for each letter in their name! C (caring) A (attractive) S (silly) S (sassy) I (independent) D (daring) Y (yeller)
******* for the second adaption I would recommend limiting the students to 4 letters and have them just say the other letters in the name to save time
******* consider allowing the students 1 pass if they get stuck on a letter. Maybe ask them to tell you what they come up with by the end of the day!
These ice breakers could be an excellent way to dive into a literacy activity for the day by warming the students up and having some fun!
Credits:
I adapted these ice breakers to make them fit my needs but check out these awesome resources for plenty of other fun ice breakers!
Happy Halloween! This year Halloween falls on a Monday so teachers have a class full of sugared up children PUMPED to go trick or treating after school. It an be a challenging day to keep students focused so why not throw in some holiday themed fun to allow the students breaks to refocus!
created on canva
The idea for this Ice breaker came from I Want to be a Super Teacher on Pinterest. I modified the activity so a student who is eliminated is only out for 1 round rather than the entire game. I believe this allows for a more inclusive activity, especially with the younger students.
This activity is a fun way to spice up a Physical Health Education class! I like the idea of having themed activities for the students to stay engaged! It is important to allow the students some control in their education so having them invent one of their own exercises is great for ensuring the students feel involved. I might use this activity to have students take turns leading each exercise to work on communication skills and confidence talking in front of a class. This activity was found on Pinterest posted by Your Therapy Source.
This last icebreaker is a fun way to get students excited for drama with some Halloween themed acting! I would get the students to first name any Halloween themed nouns. Start by reminding the students that a noun is a person, place or thing. Students may list things like:
pumpkin
bat
ghost
spider
witch
The listing of nouns is a great language arts lesson to set up a fun game of CHARADES! Write down all the nouns students came up on pieces of paper and have students act out the word on their paper so classmates could guess!
Extension: Instead of nouns students could list verbs to act out!
Adaption: Students could act out any noun they wanted and everyone in the class writes what they think is being acted out on a piece of paper. All the papers are then collected and the actor reads out the guesses.
The purpose of this weeks icebreakers are to get the students OUTSIDE for a bit. Most research seems to claim that students should be getting around 60 minutes of outside time a day. Students are stuck inside for long periods of time throughout the day so these activities are a great way to bring your students outdoors to connect with nature!
The first activity is a game I learned during a drama in situ. I believe this game would be best played outside as it gives the students plenty of space to get creative!
YES LETS is played by everyone walking around in a circle. When someone comes up with an idea they shout it out loud “Lets all jump around like kangaroos” the students must respond with “Yes Lets” before beginning to act out the action that was called out for two minutes before everyone quietly returns to walking in a circle.
This activity is an excellent way to build confidence in your students by giving them CONTROL over what they are doing. It is also a great bonding game because you are right there beside the students acting silly with them!
This next activity is a great way to SLOW down and CONNECT with nature.
worksheet created by Little Pine Learners on teachers pay teachers I edited the worksheet to add colour on canva
I would provide the students some quite time to walk around and fill out the worksheet with whatever they find on their individual nature walk. After I would bring the class together and direct the students to take “one step forward” every time they had the same item listed as their classmate and we would share our findings. This would be a fun way to connect with nature and then COLLABERATE with our peers.
The purpose of todays ICEBREAKERS are to get students up and MOVING! This is a great way to calm down an energetic group before the next lesson, get the kids blood following and have some fun within the classroom!
The idea for this game was found on education.com posted under icebreakers. Directions: Everyone sits in a circle. The teacher takes one student out of the circle and out of earshot. This student will be the “guesser”. The teacher then choose someone left in the circle to be their movement leader. The chosen student then begins to do simple movements while remaining in the circle, the student will change the movement as they see fit. The other students must copy the leader’s movements, while trying not to reveal who the leader is. Every student must continually be doing the movement! The guesser comes back into the center of the circle as the movements continue. That student has three guesses to chose who the movement leader is!
ADAPTIONS:
I could try this game having the students use animal noises instead of actions
I could have there be two guessers for an additional challenge
With older grades I could have two movement leaders and have half the class follow one leader and the other half follow the other
This activity was found on teacherspayteachers under 46 free drama games posted by Drama Trunk
Directions: The aim of the game is to get the whole class standing. Students sit silently in a circle. Students must randomly stand up whilst saying a consecutive number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 so on) the student would remain standing after saying their number. If two students stand and say a number at the same, everyone must sit down and start at number 1 again. The game requires the class to cooperate and use non-verbal communication to achieve their goal (no talking other than the popcorn numbers). The class cannot work around the circle. It must be random.
ADAPTIONS:
students could be instructed to do the alphabet instead of counting- this is great for an introduction to a literacy activity
students could be asked to skip count ie: 2,4,6…. 3,6,9….- this is a great activity for students who are working on skip counting, addition or subtraction (have them start at a number and work backwards maybe)
have each student make a different animal noise- this is great for working on students memory as well as coming up with lots of animal noises
have students each name a different country- great activity for social studies
***** There are so many fun adaptions to link this game to every subject just be sure to keep it age appropriate so the game continues to move
Photo by Norma Mortenson found on Pexels.com https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-students-standing-at-a-hallway-8457438/
So last week I shared a couple resources I found of off teachers pay teachers and I thought it would be handy to do a quick Screencastify tutorial on how I found my ice breaker for this week!
This weeks ice breaker is a back to school classic!
Purpose:
It is a great way to get kids up and moving
the kids meet new classmates and get to know them with the hopes of forming bonds based of similar interests.
I found this particular work sheet on Teachers Pay Teachers by searching for activities that were appropriate for grade three but the exciting thing about this ice breaker is that it is so easily adapted to fit whatever your needs are that day!
I really like the rule that you can only use each student once because it encourages the students to interact with more kids. I have seen this bingo style game adapted to fit a certain holiday or season which would be a great way to introduce kids to the idea that different families all have their own traditions to make the holidays special for them.
As the educator I would absolutely include myself in this ice breaker because it is a great way to allow the students to get to know me and start building a personal relationship with my class.
I believe it is a great way to be more relatable and show your students that you may be the teacher but you are also a person with interests.
This is an easy game to bring into my PRACTICUMS to get to know the students who will be helping me further my own education. It is an adaptable game with very few materials that develops students social and communication skills and will hopefully make them a little more comfortable with their new classmates!
The focus for today’s activities was quick games that can be done right from the students desk to start the day out fun.
These quick questionnaire style games are an excellent way to allow kids to start opening up and for me as the educator to build a personalized relationship with my students. I would use these activities at the start of each day to get kids talking with the goal that the more the kids open up the more comfortable they will be speaking up in class. The inspiration for todays ice breakers comes from my EDCI 336 professor who begins every class with a similar activity in order to introduce us to different pieces of technology.
This first Icebreaker is an online game of Would you Rather. The picture and the idea for this activity comes from Dawn Ciulla and was found on Teachers Pay Teachers under the heading Ice Breaker – Would You Rather?, thank you for the fun google slides Dawn!
How to Use:
I may start out using these slides by having the kids vote by raising different body parts. The first one I may ask them to raise their hand then next time it could be raise your elbow, or nose or another silly action to vote.
I would be very interested in hearing the kids explanations after so I would be sure to ask if any kid wanted to volunteer a reason why they voted each way. By asking these expanding questions it is another way to get to know your students better and help the students expand their communication skills.
Adaption:
I would adapt this activity by having the kids stand up and walk to one corner of the room if they vote for outer space and the other side if they vote for the deep ocean. This may cause more commotion in the classroom but it gets this kids up and moving which is very important for brain development!
This icebreaker was also found on Teachers Pay Teachers curtesy of DizonDesigns and is best found searching Ice breaker- Roll A Question.
I would use simple questions at the start of the year to get to know the students and as the semester unfolds I would adapt my questions to fit the curriculum the students are learning. If I was working on counting in math class I would have the kids gather on the carpet and roll the giant dice and then as a group we would count out each dot on the dice before the student who rolled answered the question.
A fun way to get the students up and moving is by using a giant foam dice and having the kids toss the dice to one another and have them answer the question of whichever number on the dice their right thumb is on. I played this adaption of the game in EPHE 310 and it as a great way to practice hand eye coordination, communication and get the kids up and moving.
These are just two examples of quick and easy ice breakers that help build the relationship between student and teacher and get the kids communicating about themselves! I would absolutely join in on both of these ice breakers to share with my students.
Children get bored. As educator’s it is imperative to our students success that we find ways to keep children engaged and excited about learning.
Being a successful learner stems from balancing working hard and taking down time for SELF CARE. As the teacher in the classroom the responsibility to balance the kids day falls to you.
ICE BREAKERS and MINI GAMES are a great way to take a breather from learning while remaining stimulated and actively participating within the classroom. These activities are a great way to start the year by getting the class comfortable with you as the teacher, along with meeting their new classmates and future friends!
Ice-breakers can be used in a controlled environment to allow oneself to be silly and have some fun. Throughout the year mini activities can be used to transition the energy within the classroom. They also give the kids a chance to go outside and incorporate more movement into the day. Having these activities ready is an excellent way to ensure you have extra resources available if a lesson plan takes less time than expected, or the group is visibly losing focus.
The Mission:
To use open education resources to find and plan ice-breaker style activities and explore how they can be used to stimulate students while adding more movement and practical problem solving techniques into the kids day. These activities will certainly be fun and an excellent way to break up the day but I also believe they have a place in teaching within the curriculum in a unique way.
How will this look?:
Each week of the semester I will post at least one ice-breaker style activity along with the specific benefits and suggested modifications to adapt the activity to different age groups, relevant current events or the curriculum.
These activities differ from a lesson plan because of the length of activity, lack of materials and their heavy reliance on play style learning. By the end of my exploration I am expecting to have a collection of ready activities to try out as well as research on the best times to use these activities and the benefits they will have.
