PRM 270: Leadership & Group Dynamics
Activity Notebook
Fall 2015
Kayla Singleton
Icebreaker
1. Olympic Warm up
2. Speed Dating
3. Categories and Line up
4. Group Juggle
5. Animal Kingdom
6. One word Describe
7. Circle Map story
8. Inside- out
9.Chicken Stretch Warm up
10.Check in
11. Alive- Awake- Alert- Enthusiastic
12. Human Rock, Paper, Scissors
Olympic Warm up
Category: Icebreaker
Time: 10 minutes
Materials Needed: None, just open space.
Description:
Set up requires participants to be in a circle. Make sure participants have enough space to move around, use the arms length apart rule. Objective is to get bodies moving and participants to feel more comfortable around each other. The facilitator will start out by giving a sport and the group will have to act this out. Ex. Rowing a boat. You then can go around the circle and have everyone give you a sport or you as the facilitator can continue telling the participants a sport.
Examples of sports: Baseball, Basketball, Bowling, Boxing, Cross- Country Skiing, Football, Rock Climbing, Rowing a boat, Swimming, Tennis, etc.
Variation or Tips for Facilitation:
If participants are unfamiliar with sport that you have called out either you as the facilitator show the sport or ask someone in the group that knows to show the sport.
Does not matter the amount of people. The leader can do this icebreaker with them.
Discussion, Debrief, and/or processing ideas:
· Ask participants if they used particular strategies, what worked and didn’t?
· Were the sports that were called out easy to do the motion to?
· Did you use any skill-related components in this activity? Explain.
· Did this make you feel more comfortable around your peers?
Source:
Singleton, D. (2015, August). Understanding Leadership. PRM 270: Leadership & Group Dynamics.
Speed Dating
Category: Icebreaker
Time: 1 minute with each person. Time will Vary with how many people you have.
Materials needed: Set of three questions that you want to them ask each person that they talk to.
Description:
Set up requires participants to be around each other, no specific way. You will tell everyone the three questions, make them simple but still something they can talk about. Tell them to find a partner and then start the timer. After the timer goes off tell them to switch and ask their partner the same questions. Then tell them to find a new partner. This can happen however many times that you would like.
Example of questions: Where were you born? What is your major? What is your favorite food? What do you do in your leisure time?
Variations or Tips for Facilitation:
Make sure that everyone understands your questions, if not, the leader needs to find easier questions for them.
Make sure that you have an even number of people, if not, the leader can join in.
Discussion, Debrief, and/or Processing Ideas:
· Ask participants if they had to think about the questions, which ones were easy and wasn’t?
· Did this make you feel “powerful” over your opponent or “powerless”. Why?
· Did the gender matter?
· Did any previous skills help you talk to your partner?
Source:
Singleton, D. (2015, August). Group Dynamics. PRM 270: Leadership & Group Dynamics.
Categories and Line up
Category: Icebreaker
Time: 10 Minutes
Materials needed: None, Just an open space.
Description:
Set up requires you to count how many participants you have and figure out a way for you to creatively break them up into two groups. After they are broken up into two groups you then ask them to do a task. This could be anything from line up according to height, first name, last name, age, or anything that you can think of. You can also change up the game after they have tried this once and say okay this time no talking. The leader can change this and add to as much as he or she wants.
Examples of breaking them into groups would be counting off by twos (would prefer not to do this), splitting them up by an age range, splitting them up by superhero, etc.
Examples of adding to the game would be adding in no talking, no using hands, no moving lips, have to close their eyes and only use hands to feel how tall the person is.
Variations or Tips for Facilitation:
Make sure participants understand which side is what in the line up. Example of this would be tallest on the left and shortest on the right.
If groups do not have matching amount of people it is okay, but leader can join in if needed.
Discussion, Debrief, and/or Processing Ideas:
· Ask if changing up the game was skillful and made them think?
· How did this game make you feel when you were lining up by age?
· Did any previous encounter with your group have anything to do with how well you lined up?
· Did this game help you get to know your group any better?
Source:
Singleton, D. (2015, August). Group Dynamics. PRM 270: Leadership & Group Dynamics.
Group Juggle
Category: Icebreaker
Time: 10 Minutes
Materials needed: At least 5 objects to throw.
Description:
Set up requires you to bring your own objects to throw. First, make sure that your group is in a circle and they at least one persons name. It is good to go around the circle first and have everyone say their name. After everyone has someone’s name the leader will start throwing the first object. The leader will throw it to the first person. When the first person catches the ball they will yell out a name for him or her to catch. This will continue to happen until everyone has had the object. After the last person has caught the ball they will throw it back to the leader. After the group has a good grasp on how to play this game you can add more objects.
It is better to have different type of objects such as a ball, a bear, dog toys, etc.
Variations or Tips for Facilitation:
If participants are unfamiliar with each other make sure that you go around the circle until everyone knows at least one persons name.
Make sure that participants are able to catch the object and that they are able to throw it across the circle.
Discussion, Debrief, and/or Processing Ideas:
· Ask participants if this helped them learn each other names?
· Did this help you work on interactive skills?
· Did you have to multitask?
· Were the objects easy to catch?
Source:
Singleton, D. (2015, August). Group Dynamics. PRM 270: Leadership & Group Dynamics.
Animal Kingdom
Category: Icebreaker
Time: 15 minutes
Materials needed: Strips of paper, enough pens for everyone
Description:
Pass out strips of paper to each group member. After everyone have paper and a pen ask him or her to write an animal on it that others would know. When everyone is finished collect the strips of paper and mix them up. Ask your participants to come and pick a piece of paper. When the leader gets to three they have to find someone else with the same type of animal. Rule- each animal has to be represented by an action, no speaking aloud! Once they have found their partner, they can then talk and get to know each other.
Example of an animal would be: Dog, Cat, giraffe, elephant, monkey, bird, etc.
Variations or Tips for Facilitation:
If participants act unsure of how to act out their animal the leader can show them.
Make sure that all participants are following the rule and getting to know each other.
Discussion, Debrief, and/or Processing Ideas:
· Ask participants if this help you feel more comfortable around each other?
· Did this help you interact with each other?
· How did this game make you feel?
· What kind of strategies did you use to complete this game?
Source:
Icebreakers for High School Students. (2000). Retrieved October 20, 2015, from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/icebreakers-for-high-school-students.html
One Word Describe
Category: Icebreaker
Time: 15-20 minutes
Materials needed: Index cards with objects on it. Example: Cell phone, apple, tree, ball, pen, ear ring, eye, sunglasses.
Description:
You have the participants to find someone else in the room with the same eye color as you. Once they find their partner you then give one person in the group a card. The leader tells them not to turn the card over until everyone has a card and you have given instructions. The instructions are one person has to be the communicator and one has to try to guess what the word is. The communicator can only use one word at a time to describe the word that they have on there notecard. After everyone has guessed their notecard you then tell them to switch roles and give them another notecard.
Variations or Tips for Facilitation:
If there is not an even number of participants either the leader can join in or you can have a group of three.
Make sure that all participants are following the one word rule.
Discussion, Debrief, and/or Processing Ideas:
· Ask participants what made this game challenging?
· Was it hard to figure out who was the communicator first?
· Did any previous skills help you with this task?
Source:
Singleton, D. (2015, October). Communication. PRM 270: Leadership & Group Dynamics.
Circle Map story
Category: Icebreaker
Time: 10 minutes
Materials needed: raccoon circle rope
Description:
This is where your participant’s will get into a circle and grab on the raccoon rope. First the leader needs to break up the group into smaller groups. Once the participant’s are in their smaller groups the leader will explain the rules. The aim of the game is to go around the circle and everyone tell the last place they have been. Either another county or state and the participants have to make the rope into that shape. Example would be Tennessee the group would have to form the outline of Tennessee with the rope and talk about what they did there.
Variations or Tips for Facilitation:
· The size of the group does not matter with this icebreaker.
· Make sure that participants understand how to form the rope and what to do.
Discussion, Debrief, and/or Processing Ideas:
· Ask participants if this helped them get to know the other participants more.
· Did this help you interact with other group members?
· Did any previous skills help you with this activity?
Source:
Singleton, D. (2015, September). Group Dynamics. PRM 270: Leadership & Group Dynamics.
Inside- out
Category: Icebreaker
Time: 5 minutes
Materials needed: Raccoon circle rope
Description:
This is where your participants will be divided up into groups. After they are split into their groups they will all get inside the raccoon circle. When they are all inside of the circle they have to get out of the circle without using there hands. They can use the rest of there bodies just not their hands. They all have to get out of the circle before they win.
Variations or Tips for Facilitation:
· The size of the group does not matter in this icebreaker
· Make sure that everyone understands the rules before the leader starts this activity
· Make sure that the leader watches closely because this game is easy to cheat on.
Discussion, Debrief, and/or Processing Ideas:
· Ask participants if they one person was the leader or if everyone helped out?
· Did they have a certain strategy or did they have to go plan B?
· Did any previous skills help you with this game?
Source:
Singleton, D. (2015, September). Group Dynamics. PRM 270: Leadership & Group Dynamics.
Chicken Stretch Warm Up
Category: Icebreaker
Time: 5 minutes
Materials needed: None
Description:
This activity the leader will lead the group all together. The leader will start out by asking the participants to stand up and we are going to do some stretching. Say something along the lines of we are always looking down at our cell phone and we never move our necks. Ask them to move their neck in and out a couple of times. Then move on to moving your shoulder up and down because of posture. In todays world we have such bad posture and we need to relax our shoulders. Next move put your arms up at a 90 degree angle and move your forearm’s up and down. The last step is to make sure your voice is really clear so we are going to warm up our voices. Make a noise sort of like a chicken but not exactly like it. Then tell the participants that we are going to do all of these together. The end result is that everyone will look and sounds like a chicken.
Variations or Tips for Facilitation:
· Make sure that everyone is participating.
· This is a fun activity make sure that you are making it fun.
Discussion, Debrief, and/or Processing Ideas:
· Ask participants if this loosened them up?
· Ask participants if they liked this activity?