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Small Group Games

THAT TUNAMENE!

Divide students into teams and have one student face off against another student from the other team. Play five seconds of a popular song and have them guess. If both students don’t know, let anyone call it out.

WHAT’S MINE IS YOURS

Have five students each donate one of their possessions to a communal “jackpot.” As the leader, you may spice it up by adding an iTunes or other gift card, as your possession. While this is happening, write the five students’ names on slips of paper and add them to a basket. Pull out a slip of paper to eliminate students until only one is left. This person wins everything in the jackpot.

TELL US WHAT YOU KNOW

Three students compete. Each is given a topic and 10 seconds to give as many words as possible relating to that topic. After time is up, they are given a score by the game leader.

WINDS OF WAR

Two student volunteers blow into a straw to try to push a ping pong ball off their opponent’s end of the table. You may play several rounds with different student challengers, resulting in a face-off between the two best players.

PUMPKIN BOWLING

During the fall season, pit students against each other in a game of pumpkin bowling, where student volunteers bowl two frames apiece using pumpkins of various sizes instead of bowling balls.

QUACK-QUACK

Have 1 player leave the room; once that player has left, the other players to need to change the room in some way. When the player returns, they need to walk over to what they think has changed. The rest of the group quacks louder as the player gets closer to finding out what has changed.

MIX AND MEET

This is a really fun and simple (and yummy) small group get to know you game. Get each person to grab a small handful of M&M’s but be sure to tell them not to eat them yet.

Each person will need to take a turn to share a fact about themselves for every chocolate they have grabbed. The fact they share must be associated with the color of the M&M

they picked. For example, if they have three blue and one green, they would have to say three facts for the “blue topic” and one fact for the “green topic”.

Here are some examples of topics you can do for the colors. Feel free to mix and match to use the topics you like.

VERSION #1

Blue = Something about your family
Green = Something about your school
Yellow = Something about your friends
Red = People you admire
Brown = Music & movies you like

VERSION #2

Blue = Something about your childhood
Green = Favorite hobbies
Yellow = Most memorable or embarrassing moment
Red = Favorite foods
Brown = Favorite places to travel

This food-based small group icebreaker game can be played with other colorful chocolates, too.

  • M&Ms
  • Smarties
  • Jelly beans
  • Clinkers

TWO TRUTHS AND A TALE

For this great get to know you game, each person must make three statements about themselves, one of which isn’t true. For example: I have two brothers, I was born in Australia, I have a motorcycle.

This works best when you give the group some time to think of their statements, and write them down if they need. Once one person makes their statements, the rest of the group must guess, or vote on, which statement is the tale. You could play as a team, or individually. It could work well to get each group member to write down their own answers and see who gets the most correct.

NAME BINGO

This is probably one of the oldest and most well known icebreakers. It’s also known as “People Bingo” and “Get To Know You Bingo”. It works for groups of all ages, and can be a really interesting game if played properly. You’ll need to create a name bingo sheet, so basically a 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 grid of personal statements. IE. “has long hair” or “has more than 5 siblings” or “has travelled overseas” etc.

Hand these people bingo sheets out to each person and give them a pen, and then send them off to mingle and find people that fit in the gaps. Each player can only use another person once on their sheet. So the game can either finish when someone collects a name for the entire grid. Alternatively, the game can continue and bingo can be played after everyone has completed their grids. So a leader would start reading out the names of the youth group kids and then they would need to cross off a name when it has been called – if they get 4 in a row – they win!