The group icebreaker game helps Sunday School classes loosen up and start interacting. Games help children get to know one another, so they can start to become friends. As a Sunday School teacher, it’s your responsibility to plan for and lead icebreaker games. But what if you’ve never done it before? What if you don’t know any games to plan? That’s why we’ve collected these successful icebreaker games.

To identify the best icebreaker games, we asked a bunch of people to tell us their favorite icebreaker games - games they would happily recommend to new teachers, because they work. Then, from the games described to us, we picked the best ones.

Currently the games are divided into two pages. One, this one, has games for younger children. The other one has youth group icebreaker games. Of course, many games are suitable for a broad age range. Games that will work for both younger children and youth groups are repeated on each page. You only have to look at the one page for your age group, to find all the games we have for your class.

Come to Order

• Contributed by: a high school teacher
• Ages: preschool, early grades, older primary, middle school, high school, young adult, teen, youth

My favorite "get to know each other game" is standing in line. I was introduced to it as a girl guide and have used it often when we met in a new group of people and as a high school teacher with new classes. It only takes a few minutes, but you suddenly know a lot about people, if you can remember :-)

This game is good for all ages, if you give a little thought to the criteria you line up after. Preschoolers, for example, won’t know the alphabet. A Captain calls out what the rule for the line up is, for instance by height, and people line up. When the line has been formed everybody introduces themselves and shakes hands with their neighbors in the line. Repeat four or five times with new rules.

Criteria for forming the line can be:

• Age, youngest first
• Height, smallest first
• Alphabetically by given name, family name, town you come from, street you live in, ...
• Shoe size,
• Length of hair
• Size of nose (great discussions arise :-)
• Height you can jump etc.

I See Something

• Contributed by: B. Seiler
• Ages: preschool, early grades

This is a game we used to play when I was young that requires no materials and can be played indoors or outside. One person is the looker and he/she looks around the area everybody is in, picks an object that everyone can see, and gives a clue as to what it is without giving the name. For example, the clue might be "I see something brown with four legs" for a coffee table. Each other member in the group gets a chance in turn to guess the item. Whoever gets the correct answer then becomes the next looker.

If I Could Be Any Animal...

• Contributed by: Keri Knutson, parent of a 1st grader.
• Ages: preschool, early grades

This is a good game for kindergartners and first graders and can really get them talking and laughing. The children gather in a circle and one begins by saying his/her name and telling what kind of animal they would like to be and why.

Hi, My name is _________, and if I could be any animal, I would be a _________, because ___________.

You then go around the circle, with each child taking a turn, allowing the other children to comment. Encourage children to be creative and to come up with unusual animals. This game works well because kids love animals and it gets them talking to each other and responding. I have found this really helps children to get to open up with each other, because they all have different ideas and it helps them to start conversations about their different opinions or experiences.

Honey Do You Love Me?

• Contributed by: a youth group member
• Ages: older primary, middle school, high school, young adult, teen, youth

This is a game that I played with my youth group and had a LOT of fun. The suggested age range is probably older-primary through young adult, but it seems to be enjoyable for almost anyone. It's called "Honey Do You Love Me?" Any number of people can play. Everyone sits in a circle, and one person is picked to start the game. The basic play goes like this: The person who is "it" says to someone else in the room, "Honey, do you love me?" The person they ask must reply "Honey, I love you, but I just can't smile." (obviously, without smiling!) If they can do it without smiling, the person who was "it" must keep asking people around the room until someone smiles. Then they're it. The person who is "it" can use whatever theatrics they'd like...batting eyelashes, making faces, silly voices...to try to get the other person to smile.

Human Knot

• Contributed by: a youth group member
• Ages: older primary, middle school, high school, young adult, teen, youth

We played a human knot game in schools and camps. It's most suitable for older-primary age students and older. A group of 8-16 people stand in a small circle facing each other. Everyone sticks their hands into the center of the circle and randomly grabs someone else's hand with each of their own hands. The objective of the game is to untangle this "human knot" without anyone letting go of a hand, ending up with one large circle (although sometimes, two separate or linked circles might be the end result). The participants have to step over or under each others linked arms, with the close physical proximity and silly maneuvers breaking the ice between strangers. This game also requires team work and decent leadership skills in one or more participants.

Morning Workout

• Contributed by: Tona P., Finland
• Ages: preschool, early grades, older primary, middle school, high school, young adult, teen, youth

This was something our leaders at theater-creativity camp often started the day with when I was 12-15 (youngest kids at camp were around 7-8). This game works well for children in early grades, and would probably work with younger kids too. It can be fun even for adults with the right modifications. It's very simple, and sounds boring, but after a few rounds everyone is warmed up and usually giggling.

Everyone sits in a circle, with legs extended (or knees drawn up, doesn't matter) in front of them. The leader describes the game, which goes like this: Everyone lies down on their backs. The first person (usually a leader or someone who knows how it goes) sits up and says "Hi, I'm Susie!". Then everyone else sits up too and chorus "Hello Susie!". Everyone down again, next person, repeat. When everyone has done this once you add something about yourself, like "Hi, I'm Susy and I like flowers!" (... and I come from Michigan / and I'm 12 years old / etc). The group sits up and choruses "Hello again Susie!". The later rounds can be more or less giggly/challenging depending on how closely you instruct the participants to match the type of statement the leader makes. For the first time you can do all rounds with only basic information and little "I like" or "I dislike" statements. (And it doesn't have to be real "sit ups", but for older kids you can make it more challenging by deciding how people should should move, or piling on extra moves for the later rounds, f.ex. sit up and then raise your arms/touch your toes/wiggle your nose/or any combination.)

Middle Name Game

• Ages: early grades, older primary, middle school
• Contributed by: a youth ministry director

(This is a variant of 'Come to Order.' We're listing it separately because of the element of competition added - and as a vote of confidence, considering its contributor. )
Here's one the kids love: The Middle Name Game If you have enough kids, divide them into two teams (the more kids, the longer the game will last). Once the teams have been determined, have them line up alphabetically according to their middle names. The first team to accomplish this correctly wins. If you have a smaller group or you'd rather not have a winning team/losing team, you could always do one, big, long line instead.

Know an icebreaker we're missing?

Do you know a good icebreaker game for primary aged kids that we're missing? Share it!

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