Camp is a place where people learn a lot about each other in a really short amount of time! As a counselor, part of your job is to create a sense of community in your cabin, on your line and among the camp as a whole. On Opening Day, when your campers arrive, you’ll have a cabin meeting where you’ll play some “getting-to-know- you” games. You can also do this in your activity. Really, you get paid to play games! How cool is that!

Use this forum to share your favorite icebreaker(s) with everyone. If you have a link to an online source, put that on here, too! Everyone should post at least one.

My favorite icebreaker that lets you get to know everyone is the shoe game!!
1. everyone takes of one shoe and puts it in a pile
2. pass out the shoes randomly to people (dont give anyone their own shoe)
3. once everyone has a shoe they have to find who that shoe belongs to… when they find them they have to learn 3 facts about them (one being their name) and then one at a time they will introduce that person to the whole group.
4. everyone will have a chance to introduce someone

Are you ready for this?

A solid one is the nickname game when you go around in a circle & each person says their name and does an action that starts with the same letter. To ensure memorization of all names, everyone in the circle can repeat the nicknames.

I am also a big fan of “The Wind Blows” where everyone stands in a circle, with one person in the middle. The person in the middle says “the wind blows for…” and then something true about themselves. Everyone else in the circle that the statement applies to has to switch places. It works best if you take your shoes off and use them to mark spots in the circle. You can customize the game by calling it “the Shenandoah wind” (if you’re in VA/DC) or “the blue ridge wind” (if you’re in NC).

Human knots are sweet…

There’s also this really great game called Psychiatrist, but it’s better to play in small groups. If anyone’s interested, I’d be happy to explain it to a small group.

And I just found this game online: Human Sculptures
The facilitator should announce a category (e.g. famous movies or famous songs — the more specific the better). All players are then divided into smaller groups and one team leader is given a pen and paper. Each group brainstorms an idea that goes along with the topic and each team leader must write down the idea on a sheet of paper and turn it in to the leader, who checks that the idea is appropriate for use. Each group then creates a sculpture using their bodies. Every member of the group should comprise some part of the entire sculpture. After a predefined time limit (for example, five minutes), each team looks at each other’s sculpture. Each team is allowed two guesses for what the other team has formed. Whatever group guesses the the other group’s sculpture the closest is the winner.

I have more (WAAAAAH!, Picca Picca, Oink My Pig Oink, etc.) but they’re less about meeting new people and more about playing fun games

I absolutely love Never Have I Ever. When I went to summer day camps when I was younger, this was my favorite first day game.
1. Everyone sits in a circle
2. Everyone holds up ten fingers
3. Each camper gets a turn to say, “Never have I ever…” and then something that she has never done. For example, “Never have I ever broken my arm” or “been out of the country.”
4. Whoever has done something that someone says (ex: if someone has been out of the country) then they put one finger down.
5. At the end, whoever wants to can share a story about one of the things they’ve done.

Another good one is Would You Rather.

I also like Fact Charades.
1. Everyone gets into a circle
2. Go around the circle, giving each person a turn.
3. On the first round around, each person must act out their favorite movie.
4. On the second round, they act out their favorite hobby
5. Next, their favorite song, or book, or any other fact about themselves.

There’s also Indian Chief, Telephone (or Telephone Pole), Green Glass Door, Umbrella, The Moo Game, Do You Love Your Neighbor?, and Little Sally Walker. These ones aren’t ice breakers, though, just fun games.

Some of my favorites include some that have already been said. I really like Two Truths and a Lie. and they are a lot of fun. During my Freshman orientation at college my POP leaders (Peer Orientation Person) wrote questions on a beach ball and we had to answer the questions.

My favorite Ice Breaker is Cool Kids. It is very similar to Christine’s game “The Wind Blows”. To play everyone stands in a circle. One person in the middle says their name and a fact about themselves that makes them cool. (Ex. “My name is Abby and I’m a cool kid because my favorite color is purple.) Then anyone that the fact is also true for has to run through the middle of the circle and find a new place to stand. They cannot go back to their same spot in the circle. The person left with out a spot in the circle is the next “cool kid”.

Lexie’s new favorite game: …it needs a name!

Haha, okay, so it’s pretty easy. Everybody sits in a circle and the idea is just to count upwards but you cannot SAY any number with a 3, 6, or 9 in it- you have to clap! Sounds easy, but wait till thirty rolls around… anywho, to make it a get-to-know-you game, I was thinking whoever breaks the count (and it happens A LOT) gets to tell us a fact about their self =)