Hello. I’m a theatre teacher and ice-breaking and getting to know each other is very necessary in building trust which is the lynchpin of play-making. I’ll keep building this document as I prepare for possible remote learning. Some of these icebreakers are adaptations of face-to-face activities, my own ideas, or lifted straight from the listed online-resources at the end of the document. I will further adapt activities from my Pinterest board - https://www.pinterest.com/theatreteaching/
Eye Spy Everyone has to go find something "blue" or "fluffy" etc and bring it to the camera. Or you can play “I Spy” on screen with students’ backgrounds.
The Truth About Me One participant shares something true about themselves and if others feel it is true about them as well, they cover their camera with their hand. The participant watches the gallery view and calls out the person who covers their camera last. Once called out, that student then shares something true about themselves and the game goes on and on. You can also add variations of “I am” or “I like”.
Raise Your Hand Teacher: prepare a list of statements (I like to hike. I own a dog. I’m a football fan. etc.) If the statement is true to the student, they will use the “raise hand” button on Zoom (This helps students learn how to use the button so they can use it during class) or if you prefer have students actually raise their hand. Or you could have students write the word “yes” in a marker on a piece of paper and raise the paper.
Heads & Shoulders
Teacher: find some fun trivia questions with two possible answers or do true or false (Our school has 20 or 10 varsity sports teams) If students believe the answer is 20, they put their hands on their heads, and if they think it is 10, they put their hands on their shoulders. Or if you want you can do true or false. If students think the fact is true then they put their hands on their head or false on their shoulders. Teacher reads out the answer. If the student gets it incorrect, they push the “Stop Video” button on Zoom to temporarily stop sharing their video, as to show they are out of the game or that round. The last student remaining is the winner.
Would you rather? Create a list of questions with two options for answers. Would you rather watch Disney Plus or Netflix. The first option is one finger up the second option is two fingers up.
Scavenger Hunt Create a list of items you think your students would have handy and/or around their room. Share the list on your screen. Set a time limit. Whoever finds all the items first will write in the chat when they do. Once the time limit is up see who was first in chat and have them show the items.
Quarantine Bingo If you've seen the Instagram social distancing Bingo going around, you can set yourself up for another great icebreaker. No, you don't have to break out a Bingo board, but you can assess who's done what activity on the board by having people raise their hands. Has anyone else slept past noon? Baked for fun? Binged an entire season in a day?
Box of Lies Inspiration: Jimmy Fallon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md4QnipNYqM Students choose one thing from their surroundings to put in a box or if a box isn’t handy just have ready off-screen. The student who has the turn will either tell the truth describing the item or will lie. The rest of the class will either use “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to suggest if they believe it or not.
Talking Points Quite simply get your students talking with talking points such as “Which Netflix series are you currently binging? The first trip once all of this is over? Do they have a go-to snack during quarantine? Habits you’ve picked up during quarantine? etc.
Guess Who? Start by getting participants to think of a unique and interesting fun fact about themselves. Then, using the Chat option on Zoom, have each person send the fun fact
(or favourite song, hobby, etc.) only to the facilitator (and not to Everyone). Alternatively, the facilitator can have participants email the fun fact to them. Once the fun facts have been collected, the facilitator will read each of the fun facts to the group, and as each fun fact is read, the larger team will try to decide who the fun fact belongs to (this might be a good time to use the Polling or Annotations options on Zoom). The objective for the team will be to try to connect the fact to the right participants as many times as possible.
Birthday Lineup Icebreaker In this challenge, the objective is for participants to order themselves according to their birthday within the span of a year (no, the year does not matter!). However, the challenge here is that they are neither allowed to speak nor use the Chat option on Zoom. By the end of the activity, each participant will need to determine and write down what number order they are within the group. For instance, if there are 10 participants in my Zoom call, and I believe that my birthday is the first in a year, I will write down 1 on a sheet of paper. Once the facilitator finishes explaining the objective of the challenge, she will mute all participants and give them a set amount of time to complete the challenge depending on the number of participants. Once time is up, participants will reveal what number they wrote down together, and the facilitator will confirm the birthday of each participant to see how well the team did.
Flat Lay of Your Desk The final three icebreakers on this list will be simpler get-to-know-you activities that will give each participant a chance to share a bit about themselves to the rest of the team. If your meeting has more than 15 participants, it is suggested that you divide them into smaller Breakout Rooms in order to save time and maximize engagement. In the first of these activities, have each participant take a flat lay of their desk (i.e., a photo of items on the desk they’re working on taken from directly above). Then, have each participant share their photo with either the rest of the group or their breakout room, and have them tell a brief story about any of the objects that are on their desk.
Bon Appétit Give participants a minute or two to determine the most interesting yet useful app on their phone. Then, have each participant share their app with the rest of the group. While participants share their apps, the facilitator will keep track of each app that has been shared. At the end of this activity, the facilitator will send out the list of Essential Apps to the entire team. Alternatively, in place of apps, you can also do this activity with books, recipes, movies, and more!
Most Recent Photo Have participants pull up the Photos app on their phone and look at the most recent photo they took. Have each participant share their photo, and briefly tell the story behind the photo. This is a great way to get participants to share how they’ve been spending their time over this social distancing period!
Virtual Show & Tell Students show an item they possess and speak about it.
If you are using “Breakout Groups” keep scrolling for more ideas…or if you’d like ideas for “Getting to Know You” Everything from A-Z Icebreaker The larger team will be broken up into multiple smaller teams via the Breakout Rooms feature on Zoom. Once they are in their breakout rooms, participants will have 5 minutes to find items in the room that they are calling in (or, shall we say, Zoom-ing in) from that starts with each letter of the alphabet. They will need one item for each letter, and each item can be used once only. For example, they can use Apple for A, and Book for B. Each team will also select one recorder to write down what each item they have found for each letter. Once their time is up, the facilitator will bring the team back to one call, and the recorders from each team will share what they came up with.
Team Trivia Similar to Head and Shoulders, the facilitator in this activity will also need to prepare a list of trivia questions ahead of time. After breaking up the larger team into smaller groups – also using Zoom’s Breakout Rooms feature – the facilitator will send the list of trivia questions to each group via email or the File Transfer feature (under the Chat bar). Teams will also need to select one writer each to record their answers. Each team will have a set amount of time to work through the trivia questions (depending on how many questions there are), and once time runs out, the facilitator will call the separate breakout rooms back into the larger Zoom meeting. The facilitator will then get each team to share their responses to each question, and track their scores as the answers are being revealed using the Whiteboard option under the Share button.
Something in Common This simple Zoom icebreaker will also take advantage of Zoom’s Breakout Rooms option. Let Zoom automatically assign the larger team into groups of 2, and give them 5 minutes to find 5 UNIQUE things that they have in common. Within those 5 minutes, participants also need to choose the most unique thing that they have in common with
their partner, which they will share with the larger group once they go back to their larger meeting.
Getting to Know You Activities Personality Collages Students make a creative digital collage that shows who they are, using photos of themselves and family and friends but also photos and memes from the internet, and they Show and Tell the collage by presenting their screen. The 5 W’s of You Have students design a digital collage that shows these elements either on one collage or separate ones for each “W”. Present the screen to show collage and use as a talking point. Who are you? What do you… (want to study, grow up to be, stand for, want out of life, think about…)? When do you… (lose your cool, wake-up, feel your best)? Why (did you come to this college/program)? Where (are you from/hometown or where would you like to visit if you could travel)? Resources https://symondsresearch.com/icebreakers-for-online-teaching/ https://www.vivifystem.com/blog/2020/6/1/icebreakers-for-distance-learning
Resources: https://www.summitteambuilding.com/icebreakers-10-activities-to-energize-your-zo om-meetings/ https://www.bustle.com/p/21-icebreakers-thatll-make-your-zoom-happy-hours-the-h ighlight-of-your-day-22774216 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEhlQtS8570 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BrdHfdiaWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMCTUAd5b3c