In this ice-breaker, the group has to pick between two contrasting objects, based on their initial gut feeling, and then explain their choice. It’s a fun and active way for people to get to know each other and say something unique about themselves to the group. And it helps people to find commonalities among other …
I Am An Oak Tree is an ice-breaker adapted from an improv game. It’s designed to get people relating to each other, acting creatively, and creating mini-narratives. Activity Youth stand in a circle. Ask one person to stands in the middle and proclaim “I am an oak tree,” while making their body into a tree …
Today is a two-fer in my extended week sharing my favorite ice-breakers. I’m going to share with you two games I like to have students play a lot: “Wah” and “Name Wah.” Wah “Wah” is an quick and energizing game that is about coordination, observation, and timing that lots of student programs use. “Wah” Instructions …
“Robot Factory” is a fun team-building ice-breaker that gets kids creative juices flowing. It scales well for groups of different sizes. It involves no supplies or preparation. I’ve found it engaging for middle school to high school age youth. The objective of Robot Factory is for each team to work together to communicate what their …
Zoom In, Zoom Out is an ice-breaker designed to help students to explore how good stories engage the reader by focusing on tiny details and by telling universal truths. We’ve used it to good effect to get our students creative juices flowing at the beginning of our youth programs. The ice-breaker requires no supplies or …
The Talk Show is one of my favorite ice-breakers to get students to know one another toward the beginning of a program. The idea is to pair up students with one another randomly and have each one play the role of a talk show host and talk show guest. The goal is for each student to …
The Raccoon Circle is a collection of games and ice-breakers all centered around a circle of rope or tubing used by a group (typically youth). There are hundreds and hundreds of Raccoon Circle activities that have been created and shared virally for years. You can find several online listings of activities (Jim Cain’s being the most …
Last week I had the unique opportunity of teaching two back-to-back workshops for two very different audiences: one was a webinar for 80+ teachers from around the country and the other was an in-person class for 25 roller skaters in a park. The interesting thing is that both workshops were very similar in structure. This …
As anyone who knows me for five minutes knows, dance is a big part of my life. But rarely does it leak into my professional life! Last week I has the pleasure of co-facilitating a workshop for 20 dance teachers on how to support youth-created dance videos for KQED Education. Specifically, my colleague Teresa and …
So 2020 was of course not the year that anyone expected it to be. I feel very fortunate that I continue to be gainfully employed at an organization that values my work and that serves a vital need in this time of multiple crises. Here’s some of my professional highlights from 2020. Working from Home …