It’s Time to Warm Up and Work Together
With the heat of summer coming to an end and the new school year quickly approaching, it’s time to put our teacher pickaxes to work with these 10 cool, unique, and engaging icebreaker activities.
Middle school can be a socially overwhelming time for our students, so here are some ideas to facilitate fun ways for students to build confidence in themselves and connections with their peers.
1. Common Ties
Have a list of basic questions for your students to answer about themselves written on the board Variations of this activity here!. Some examples could be their favorite animal, music, food, celebrity, or hobby. Give the students a few minutes to think about their answers while you establish sections of the classroom. Each question will be divided into categories to highlight students’ commonalities. So for their favorite animals, each corner of the classroom can be for a group of animals: mammal, reptile, amphibian, bird, fish (four corner layouts can combine the reptile and amphibian students). You will then have the students go stand in the corner corresponding with the group their favorite animal is in. So students who like lizards and snakes stand together, while the students who like eagles and penguins stand in another corner. Give them a few minutes to discuss the similarities and differences between their animals within their corners, then ask each group to share with the class why their animal group is the best. This facilitates discussion and gets students to make connections with classmates and form arguments for discourse to be continued in further lessons.
Ways to expand the activity
This activity can be continued for the first week or two of classes with each lesson starting with a new comparison for students to choose from. Ex. Students go stand in the corner corresponding to their choice between sweet and salty. These continuing connections give students more information about their peers without explicitly having to ask for it. They can create their own bonds and these strengthen when students join together to make arguments for the choices they have made. Simple class starters can build into larger projects or even debate groups. The possibilities are endless, so why not give it a try!
2. Beginnings and Endings
This game will get your students’ creativity and laughter flowing! Before class, use small pieces of paper to write sentence fragments Examples Here! students can put together. These phrases can be absurd such as, “Can I get cheese…” or “…in the bounce house”. You can begin by giving each student one piece of paper and having them walk around the room. A student with a sentence end needs to pair with a student with a sentence beginning. You can encourage the students to be imaginative and unafraid to think outside the box. These interactions will be sure to get some giggles! Can you think of any sentence endings that would make your students laugh with these beginnings? Try it out!
| This morning my cat… |
| The pizza tasted like… |
| My mom showed me an old photo of… |
Once the students have chosen their pairs and created full sentences they can share these with the class. The sharing and collaboration will bring the students closer and relieve some first-week nerves.
Ways to expand the activity
To expand this activity and work off the students’ creativity, pairs of students can be combined into groups of 4-6 students (depending on class size). These groups will use their 2-3 sentences to make up a story. Students will really need to work together and use their imaginations to create stories with the bits and pieces provided in the beginning. This process of building ideas in a less serious way makes room for students to show their personalities in their work and make connections with their peers and feel more confident participating in class in the future!
3. We are all Special
For this game, have your students write down one thing about themselves that is different than all their other classmates. Encourage them to think deeply and find something special, not just their favorite color, but maybe a funny story or habit they would like to share. You can alert them that if more than one student has the same response the whole class has to do something goofy like hold hands and do the wave! As the students share you can take short notes about their responses privately or on the board. There will inevitably be some connections between the students’ answers and these can be used to group them for extension projects.
Ways to expand the activity!
For example, if one student shares they can write with both hands, and another can wiggle their ears, they can form a group and create a mini-presentation about unique motor skills. These prompts can lead to larger creative projects where students can learn all the ways we humans are different and special.
4. Picture Patterns
Ask your students to bring one picture from when they were young. Specify that this picture should be from when they were a baby. Collect the students’ pictures as they come into class, then distribute them once everyone is settled making sure no student receives their own picture back. The students will then need to return the baby pictures to their rightful owners. This activity encourages students to look one another in the face, which can be challenging in middle school but helps foster confidence and openness in the classroom.
Ways to expand the activity
This is also a great lead into further discussions about how students were as babies and how they are different now. You can provide some sample questions for the students to ask one another which they can use as inspiration to inform possible oral projects or written reports reflecting on how we grow and change further in the school year.
5. Subject Ladder
Middle school is when school layouts and schedules change so each subject has a different teacher. Regardless of what subject you teach, it is important to know your students’ strengths and preferences. For this activity, ask your students to make a ladder ranking of their subjects with their favorite on top and least favorite on the bottom.
| 1. English |
| 2. Music |
| 3. History |
| 4. Science |
| 5. Math |
Once the students finish their ladders the teacher can create a pie chart on the board and poll the class to see which subjects are ranked where.
Ways to expand the activity
These results can be used to group students with similar interests together for future projects or get them to try something new by mixing students with different preferences together. With more knowledge and understanding of our students from the get-go, we can use this insight to inform our activities and student groupings as the school year progresses.
6. If I Were A…
This activity is very flexible so you can use it more than once with different themes or lessons. Let’s say you are a science teacher and want your students to learn the basics of botany (i.e. the study of plants). Have this phrase written on the board when the students come in. “If I were a…” Have the students sit down and tell them to complete the sentence with the name of a plant and a description. It helps with these assignments to have an example written on the board or to say it orally so the students understand what you are asking for. “If I were a sunflower I would be bright yellow and love standing in the sun. Give your students a few minutes to think and write down their sentences, then collect them. Write each plant the students chose on the board and ask the students to draw connections between the plants. As they share their ideas, add your own from the curriculum, such as “Which plants like the sun?” or “What plants do bees like, and why?”. This icebreaker can build highways of connection between each student and the topic being discussed (e.x. plants) because they have already made a personal choice in choosing a plant from the start.
Ways to expand the activity
From there, students can be grouped based on their plant categories: trees, flowers, edible plants, etc., and this can lead to research groups and possible presentations for the end of the unit. To adapt this activity for any subject, all you have to do is pick another topic! Maybe next time students can choose a famous person and describe how their life would be. The possibilities are endless!
7. Suddenly
This icebreaker is a great way to get the entire class collaborating! Basically, everyone is working together to create a really long story, with each new addition starting with the word “suddenly (similar ideas here)“. For example: First student: “I was dreaming that I fell off a boat into the ocean.” Teacher prompts: “and then” Next student: “Suddenly I saw a great white whale swimming towards me.” Teacher: “and then” Next student: “Suddenly I realized I had fish flippers instead of feet so I started swimming alongside it.” This can continue until each student contributes to the story. As the story progresses students will get more engaged and excited wanting to add their own ideas to the story.
Ways to expand the activity
You can record this story on your phone or using an audio recorder and ask students what they remember once the story is complete. This is a great way to see what students can remember and recall. You can refer back to this story after some days of school as a memory challenge to see what students can recollect.
8. Guess who
In this activity, students will try to match their peers with the interests they anonymously write down. You hand out small slips of paper to each student and have them write down two unique things they enjoy doing. This could be playing the piano or rollerblading down big hills, make sure to write some creative examples on the board to give them inspiration! Once they have written these down you can collect them and mix them up to distribute back to different students. Give them a minute to think about who they think it is, then begin the scavenger hunt to find the person with these interests. It may be even funnier when they guess wrong because this shows middle school students that their peers are not always what they appear and everyone is complex and worth getting to know.
Ways to expand the activity
Once the class matches the papers to the people, you can ask the students to find commonalities within the responses. Prompt this by explaining that connections between interests can be basic like “outdoor activities” or “instruments”, or more complex such as, “involves danger”. Let the students establish their own groups of 3-4 this way, and you can use these student-made groups for future projects and fun games.
9. Desert Island
This is a classic game! Split the middle school students into groups of 4-5 and tell them they were just in a plane crash and now they are trapped on a desert island with the people in their group and just one item each in their book bags. Each person will choose just one item they can contribute to the survival of their new tribe. Emphasize the importance of critical thinking for these decisions, as well as collaboration. If the students do not communicate well, their items may not be successful in helping them survive or escape. Make sure the students decide as a group which strategy they are going to take in their choice of items. You can get creative with this activity by providing some items all groups have already so their choices aren’t all knives and ropes. Once the students have 15 minutes or so to discuss and choose their items, each group will present their desert island survival kit and explain why they chose each item. The objects decided on for a group that wants to escape will hopefully be different than those chosen for a group that is going to wait to be rescued.
Ways to expand the activity
After the presentations have finished, you can ask your students to reflect on the answers each group chose and rank them from most likely to survive, to least. This can be a short written assignment students can do over the next few days and submit it to you for review.
10. Around the World
In this activity, you can give each student a card with a country and a few facts about that country. The peoples’ favorite food, customary clothing, and daily habits are some fun and interesting ones. Once everyone has their card, the students can move around the room and try to find peers with countries similar in culture, location, or language. For example, a student from the country Spain and another with Mexico can group together because both countries speak Spanish. From there, provide some sample questions and encourage the students to ask any follow up questions to see what other connections their two countries have. By the end of the rounds, there should be small groups of 2-3, that have at least 2 things in common between their countries. These groups can then sit together, and on a sheet of paper draw a picture or diagram explaining the similarities they found. These can be presented at the end of class.
Ways to expand this activity
This expansion works best in a class where culture and geography are part of the curriculum. Ask each student to pick a country they have always wanted to visit. Have them do research into the language, location, and culture. This can then be developed into an oral presentation, written assignment, or a demonstration such as a dance, song, or food item/dish. You and your students can be as creative as you want!
Now Time to Break some Ice!
Now that we have brainstormed some fun ice-breaking activity ideas, it helps to elaborate on them to continue the effort and further establish connections between peers as well as topics/ideas. Feel free to get creative with the application of these activities, I know I did!
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you help a struggling middle school student?
It is always important to foster a safe place where our students can feel comfortable being themselves and are able to rely on us to set a good example and to listen. Activities that build relationships with students, where students can express their interests and passions, help them find connections with their peers which can also help them manage the challenges of the time.
Why is 7th grade so bad?
7th grade is a difficult age for any student. The structure of education for middle school students is so different than elementary school. They are going through a lot of developmental and biological changes, let alone the social pressure of school. These changes also contrast in boys vs. girls creating separation and possibly unwillingness to collaborate together. Try to consider these concerns when a student is acting out or expressing frustration.
How do you zoom an icebreaker?
When students are remote learning, it is important to find icebreaker ideas to encourage every student to get actively involved in the class. Icebreakers with one-word responses or raising “keyboard” hands is a less intrusive way to grab students’ attention and keep them engaged as the lesson progresses.
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