Ice Breakers

This past year I have been working at a Before and After School Program at a nearby school. I am responsible for creating a program for all school age children staying before and after school hours. The children are from the ages of 6 to 12 years. That means there are HUGE differences in the social/emotional developmental stages that are present within the group. " I don't wanna play that game it is boring and for babies!" "I am bored!" "I don't get it!" "I just wanna do my own thing!"

Is some of the feedback I was getting at the beginning of the year. Now in order to not fall into the category of being just a baby sitter and letting the kids do their own thing I had to search for ways to engage this diverse group of children. I found these resources for group ice breakers.

Ice breakers are a great tool to engage young learners and practice cooperative goal setting, and attentive listening. It is a great diagnostic tool to evaluate how well groups of students communicate in groups, achieve goals and solve problem.

http://www.training-games.com/pdf/40FreeIceBreakers.pdf

 http://insight.typepad.co.uk/40_icebreakers_for_small_groups.pdf