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the ultimate name game: Everyone is someone else.
“What was your name again?” is a question your hear all the time, especially during a training or at a meeting. The ultimate name game plays with this idea. The ultimate name game is, like the activities described above, a good way to get acquainted.
This activity promotes
• acquaintance
• contact
• energy
• fun
• many more
Required material
• name tags (to pin or put down and a marker)
Game sequence / instruction
You will see during trainings or seminars that after registration, you will receive a name tag that you can pin on your shirt. This also happens in training rooms in the form of a folded card on the table.
With this method you give each participant a card that is not his/her own. It is then the first task of that person to find and hand over the name card owner.
How you organize it exactly is up to you. Examples: you consciously pin the wrong card on arrival at the participant (or you let someone of your team do this) and tell them that they will soon be told why they did not receive their own card.
Or allow the participants to enter the room and they will find a ticket in their seat. But you ask them to pin it and then find the owner. Extra assignment: Let them discover why they have just received a card that belongs to somebody else (search for community).
“Guess the animal” The game
This way of working is, just like Human Bingo, a way to start before the training, workshop or meeting begins to get the participants to get to know each other.
This icebreaker promotes
-
acquaintance
-
energy
-
fun
-
many more
Required material
-
two rolls (painters) of tape
-
good black highlighters.
Game sequence / instruction
The participants do not know each other. You want them to come into contact with each other in a easy-going way.
You start your explanation by saying that you tear off a piece of tape and write an animal name on it. You stick this tape to someone on his back without him knowing what animal name there is. This person must discover by asking closed questions which animal he ‘is’. In the meantime, others are also busy tearing down tapes and writing animal names on them and sticking these tapes to someone else’s back.
When the last participants have arrived, you can see if you can complete the game. Of course, there must be a few people who have guessed their name.
There is no need to evaluate. Look for yourself what kind of meat you have in the tub; which people are more easy-going and which are more quiet and introverted, so that you as a trainer also get to know the group.
Have you tried this game? Let us know what you think and leave a comment below!
Energizers!
Susan Lattanzi Roser
Content
Energizers! contains 88 energizers for children. The motto of the book is “To learn well, children need to move!” The idea behind the book is that children learn better when the exercise and let their energy out. In Energizers! you will find energizers that are easy to teach and learn. There are energizers for every age and include suggestions and variations to make sure that the fit the group. The activities are labeled by grade level. The energizers can help to calm the children down but also to stimulate them. And they can be done anywhere, Inside and Outside, in a circle, or waiting in line.
Appearance
Energizers! starts with 12 tips on how to use the energizer which is very convenient. Roser explains the energizers very good. On the side of the page is helpful information such as the pronounciation of certain words or for which grade the activity is suitable. The pictures in the book look really nice and match with the philosophy of the book. Energizers! uses music and rhythm to get the children engaged. A lot of the energizers involve singing or clapping. The writer has a lot of experience with chilren and learning and combines this with a love for piano.
If you want to order the book or read more about it, you can click here.
201 Icebreakers : Group Mixers, Warm-Ups, Energizers, and Playful Activities.
By Edie West
Content
201 Icebreakers is great for trainers, speakers and group facilitators. The book contains many activities that cost little time and preparation. Most activities can be done in less than five minutes. This makes it perfect at the beginning of a meeting to break the ice, or in the middle to get everyone excited and going again. With the games, quizzes, energizers, and brainteasers, this book has to offer. You will have a great atmosphere in no time!
Tree Switch
Tree Switch is a fantastic energizer to show people what their patterns are.
It needs little explanation and it can go all sorts of ways.
Just by saying: “Go stand in the tyre” there is a lot for you as coach to observe and give feedback on.
The idea is that there is always one tyre missing. Which means that when each member of the group goes standing in one tyre there is always someone without a tyre. Sometimes someone sees this on time and give the tyre to another member of the group. Or someone runs to make sure they have a tyre.
This means you can ask questions up front such as “Is this your strategy?”
After this you explain the game shortly.
Required materials
Tyres (amount = amount of participants)
Arrangement
The tyres are spread over an area of approximately 20x20m. (20×20 yard)
Frame
With this game participants usually don’t understand the purpose. The goal for the coach is to make clear that the patterns they are showing it the game correspond with their patterns everywhere else.
How it works
When you’re standing in a tree(the tyre) you might try to switch with someone else. The person who doesn’t have a tree tries to steal a tree.
A lot of times you don’t have to explain more than that the name of the game Tree Switch is. This is often enough explanation.
- After one minute you say “Stop!”.
- You call everybody together and ask them what they have shown of themselves. So, what did you do and do you recognise your behavior?
- A next step would be to ask the participants to act different than they would normally do. What would the game look like then?
Differentiation (not really necessary in this case)
A few suggestions
- Tyres more spread (a bigger area).
- You must have been in every tyre.
- Ask the participants to think of something.
- Saying “You’re safe in the tyres” which makes it a whole different game.
Intervention
How was is to do it completely different?
Evaluation
- What happened?
- What did we learn from this exercise?
- What are we taking with us to the next exercise?
Attention points
You get the best result when all the members of the group concentrate and do their absolute best.
Good Luck!
Clap clap
A very simple energizer which can give a lot of new insights is ‘Clap Clap’. (I love it when it’s more than just an energizer).
The participants stand in a circle. You as the trainer start by making a quarter turn with your body and look at the person which stands left to you. While you are making eye contact with this person you clap in your hands. Ask the other person to clap in his or her hands at the same time. Ask him or her to turn to the person which stands left from him or her and to do the same.
In this way you can make a cycle until everyone has participated.
After this you can do it again and challenge the participants to clap at exactly the same time. This happens best if people make contact with one another.
You can challenge the participants by asking them to do it faster. Or you can ask them to choose between clapping at exactly the same time or not clapping at exactly the same time.
This is always hilarious and can give a lot of insights in making contact, cooperation and focus.
Inside out
This is a group exercise/ energizer in which we won’t give you the solution but just challenge you to do it.
How it works:
Everyone stands in a circle and holds the hand of the neighbour/ neighbor.
This means that everyone looks in the inside.
Challenge:
You give the group the task to stand faced to the opposed side without releasing the hands.
It is possible without making all kinds of weird quirks with your body!
This is a great energizer that requires teamwork and out of the box thinking.
The stampdance
An energizer which immediately gives you energy and joy and can be finished within 2 minutes without a lot of explanation. icebreaker
How it works:
- Everyone stands in a circle.
- Stand firmly on the ground.
- first move your right hand from your chest to the front and back.
- Move eight times to the front in a rhythmic manner, you count since you are the trainer.
- Then your left arm; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. After that you stamp with your right foot on the ground until number 8. After this you do the same with your left foot.
- Subsequently you repeat the movements again with the arms and the feet but seven times, you keep counting.
- Then 6x, then 5x, then 4x, then 3x and then 2x and finally everyone just once.
- At a sudden moment you only need to call the number before you begin.
The knot
A fun energizer in which there is a lot of physical contact and people can laugh a lot is ‘The Knot’.
Give this instruction:
Stand shoulder to shoulder in a small circle.
Close the eyes, put the hands in front at the height of the shoulders.
Look with closed eyes for the hands of other people and grab them. When everyone has found two hands the eyes can be opened again.
Now the knot has to be untied WITHOUT releasing the hands!
Playing Transformer tag
Here is another old-fashioned active game which was invented for children but is very fun to do with adults.
Required materials
None
Arrangement
Arrange the children in a group, standing or sitting.
Concept
Tell the group that it’s important to put differences and habits aside. There won’t be fixed teams and it can happen that you suddenly belong to the team of the ” opponent”.
How it works:
- Show the group the two possible positions which they can use
- Tell the participants that they have to choose between two positions but that they aren’t allowed to tell their position to others.
- If you say “transform” the participants start standing in their choosen position.
- The teams tap eachother. If you are tapped you transform to another position and belong to the other team.
- Keep on until 1 team is left.
It can be played multiple times if the group likes it. Make clear that with each new game a different position can be choosen.
Differentiation
Let the group think of two new positions/postures themselves. If those postures can be carried out well will turn out later.
Evaluation
Not needed
Points of interest
Fairplay is important, if you are tapped you belong to the other team.
Security check
Explain how people are supposed to tap, in order to prevent taps that look more like beating and pushing.