Tag: icebreaker

SPOOKTACULAR 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.

Lets Go Outside with Ice Breakers

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.

Found on Drama Notebook

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.

First Day of Classes Ice Breaker

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!