Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

M&M Icebreaker – Youth Group Games

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M&M icebreaker
Image courtesy of Astrid Kopp, Flickr

This M&M icebreaker is a great youth group game for team building, as it helps your young people get to know each other better.

It’s an activity that can be enhanced by you and the other leaders participating too, as it gives the youth a chance to get to know you better as well.

Here’s how to play this icebreaker:

Resources

  • Large bowl of M&Ms
  • Pen & paper (for the list)

Preparation

Prepare a list of six questions (see the questions section below for more details)

Rules

Have the young people sit in a circle. Give one of the young people the bowl of M&Ms and tell them to take a handful, but instruct them not to eat any yet. Once they’ve taken some, they should pass the bowl to the person on their left, who should then take a handful. Continue this until everyone has some M&Ms.

Once everyone has some candy, explain the next stage. For each M&M that they have in their hand, they have to share something about themselves. Each color M&M will have a different subject that they have to share about.

Each time they share something, they get to eat the M&M it related to – continue this until every person has shared enough for all their candy to be eaten.

Questions

There are usually six colors in a pack of M&Ms – red, green, blue, yellow, orange and brown – so you need to come up with a list of six questions that the young people should share about.

These can be about anything you like, but here is a list of some different ideas to get you started:

  • Earliest childhood memories
  • Favorite restaurants
  • Favorite songs
  • Hobbies
  • Favorite Bible story
  • Dream jobs
  • Favorite games
  • Something nice about another person in the circle
  • Favorite movies
  • Favorite candy
  • Dream vacation
  • Something they love about their parents

When you’ve decided on the six subjects, write them down so that the youth can refer to the list during the icebreaker and allocate a color to each one. Flipchart paper is ideal for this, but it could just as easily be written on a regular sheet of paper if there’s no flipchart available.

Tips

  • If you have a large group, this youth group game could take quite a long time, so make sure that’s built into your session plan
  • Similarly, a large group = lots of M&Ms needed, so have a spare bag (or two) just in case
  • One or more of the topics could be based on what you’ll be discussing later in the session. For example, if you’re playing this at Thanksgiving, one of the topics could be “Something you’re thankful for”

Lasting Record

As we mentioned above, this M&M icebreaker is a great way for you and your young people to get to know each other better. After a few weeks though, it’ll be easy to forget everything that was shared.

Therefore, have one of your volunteers write down everything that’s shared as they go around, complete with who said what. This will give you a lasting record of what’s important to your young people.

This can then be used in a couple of different ways:

  1. For their benefit – During the same session (or even future sessions), you could highlight similarities between young people based on the things they like. This is perfect for team building – particularly if your youth group is in the forming stage – as it emphasizes common ground, rather than differences between them. It also gives them something to talk about in the future.
  2. For your benefit – Keeping this record will give you something to refer back to when planning activities for your youth group or subjects to discuss in the future. It’ll also help give you things to chat to them about in the future, as you’ll have a better idea of their interests.

Question: What other tips can you give to maximize this M&M icebreaker? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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How To Play Spongehead – Water Relay Games

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Water Relay Game
Spongehead Potatopants

This week’s youth group game idea is Spongehead, a water relay that ensures all your young people will get nice and wet.

Here’s how to play it:

Resources

  • Large sponges
  • Large buckets
  • Small buckets
  • Water
  • Measuring jug
  • Towels

Preparation

Fill up the large buckets with water, put a sponge in each of them and set them out in a row – this will be the start line.

Put the small buckets in a row that’s parallel to the large buckets, but about 10-20 yards away.

Teams

Split the group into equal-sized teams and have each team stand in a line behind a large bucket.

Rules

The first person from each team picks up the sponge, holds it above their head and runs to the smaller bucket. They then have to wring the sponge to try to get as much water into the smaller bucket as possible.

Once they’ve done that, they run back and pass the sponge to the next person in line who does the same thing.

Winning Team

This will be the first team that fills the smaller bucket. If none of the teams manage to completely fill the smaller bucket by the time the larger bucket is empty, the winning team will be the one that managed to transfer the most water into the smaller bucket (using the measuring jug if necessary).

Tips

  • This water relay game will ensure that everyone gets completely soaked, so it might be worth letting the youth group know in advance that they may want bring a change of clothes.
  • Some players will try to avoid getting wet by not holding the sponge over their head. If you spot anyone doing this, make them go back and re-soak the sponge (or shoot them with a super-soaker)

If you liked this water relay game, check out all our other games for youth groups.

Question: What other elements would you add to Spongehead to make it even more fun? Let us know in the comments below.

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Animal Name Game – Youth Group Games

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Animal name game youth group game
Hi youth group, my name’s Shae

The animal name game is a fun icebreaker to help with learning students’ names. It can take a little while if you have 6 or more young people, but it’s a very good way to learn their names and requires nothing but imagination.

I once did it with a group of 20 and I knew all their names by the end of the first session – (n.b. the game took about 30 minutes though!)

Resources

None

Prep time

None

Directions

  • Give the teenagers 2-4 minutes to come up with an animal that starts with the same letter as their first name (or the name they go by if it’s a nickname or their middle name) as well as a sound and motion/action for that animal. Leaders will need one too! (e.g. Shae the Salamander – I stick my fingers and tongue out and make a hissing/gulping sound; Timmy the Tiger – he may growl and make clawing motions; Molly the Monkey – she may scratch under her arms and make a sound like ‘ooh ooh ahh ahh,’ etc.)
  • Have everyone (including leaders) sit in a circle
  • Starting with the young person to your left, have them say their name, animal name, motion and sound
  • The young person to their left will say their own name, animal name, motion and sound, then they will say the previous teen’s name, animal name, motion and sound (2 total)
  • The young person to their left will then say their own name, animal name, motion and sound, then they will say the youth’s names, animal names, motions and sounds that were before them (3 total)
  • This continues around the entire circle until it reaches you
  • Say your name, animal name, motion and sound and then you must then say all their names and animal names with the sounds and motions

Tip

Make sure each of their animals are different. If you have 2 J’s (John, Jane, etc), you may want John the Jaguar and Jane the Jackrabbit. We once had to come up with 4 different ‘S’ animals in a group of 8 youth – Snake, Salamander, Snail and Snow Leopard. (If you’re stuck for an ‘N’ as I was once, Nightingale makes a great one!)

It can be a lot of fun and is a great way to learn students’ names since you get the animal name and action as a reminder, plus each youth repeats all the other youth names for you until it’s your turn.

If you found this idea helpful, we also have more name game icebreakers.

Question: Have you ever played the animal name game icebreaker? Do you add any extra features to it? Let us know in the comments below.

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Toilet Paper Wrapper – Youth Group Games

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Toilet paper game
Money on the dunny (that one’s for our Aussie readers)

We’ve published a few toilet paper games in the past and today we have another one to use with your youth group – the Toilet Paper Wrapper.

Here’s how to play it:

Resources

2 rolls of toilet paper per team

Set Up

None – this game gets better all the time!

Team Sizes

4-10 young people per team. If you have a really large youth group, this may work better as an up-front game with just 4 or 5 teams taking part.

How To Play

Each team stands in a circle next to each other and facing outwards (i.e. their backs are to each other). Give one person from each team 2 rolls of toilet paper.

The person with the paper has to wrap the first roll around their waist a couple of times without it breaking. They then pass it to the person on their right in the circle, who does the same thing.

This continues until the roll has finished, at which point they have to continue with the second roll until that’s all gone as well. This will probably mean that each player gets wrapped at least twice.

Rules

If the toilet paper breaks, they have to continue from where it broke, ensuring that it’s not loose.

In the franticness of the game, there’s a good chance that at least one player will accidentally drop the roll of paper. It’s up to them how they decide to recover it, but they have to ensure that the wrapping of the whole team doesn’t break.

Winner

The team that uses both rolls of paper first

Evil Tip

To make the game even harder, use 1-ply toilet paper as this will break more easily

Question: Can you think of any additional rules or alternative ways of playing this toilet paper game? Let us know in the comments below.

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Ping Pong Ball Relay – Youth Group Games

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Ping pong ball relay youth work gameThis week’s youth group game is the Ping Pong Ball Relay. It’s a fantastic game for your entire youth group to play and is extremely frenetic!

Here’s how to play it:

Resources

  • Ping pong balls
  • Drinking straws
  • Masking tape

Preparation

Set up a starting line on one end of the room and another line on the other end – masking tape works well for this, but you could just as easily use chairs, cones or something else.

Split the young people into equal teams and give each team a ping pong ball and each young person a drinking straw.

Have the teams line up behind the starting line.

Rules

The first person from each team puts their ping pong ball on the floor, then uses their straw to blow the ball to the line on the other side of the room. Once there, they have to turn around and blow the ball back.

Once they’ve returned to the start line, the next person on their team has to do the same thing. Keep going with the relay until every person on the team has had a turn.

Winner

Needless to say, it’s the team that has all their players complete the relay first.

Tips

  • Before organizing this game, take into account what type of flooring you’ll be playing this on. The ping pong ball relay works best on hardwood floors, although it can also work on tiling and some types of carpet. Even though non-hardwood floors make it harder, this can also make the game far more interesting and challenging
  • If teams are uneven, make sure that teams with less players have players continue until they match the number of players on other teams

Question: What extra elements would you add to the ping pong ball relay to make it even more fun? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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