Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Balloon Name Game Icebreaker – Youth Group Games

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Balloon Name Game Icebreaker
Ice balloon photo courtesy of u-murrayhusted, Flickr

This week’s addition to our youth group games is a name game icebreaker using balloons.

It’s a great activity to use in a variety of scenarios:

  • For youth groups in the forming stage
  • When you have a new batch of young people join an existing group
  • You start leading an existing group and need to learn their names

It’s easy to play and plan – here’s how to do it:

Resources

  • Up to 3 balloons of different colors
  • Sticky labels / name tags (optional)
  • Pens (optional)

Preparation

Blow up the balloons – that’s it!

Teams

This isn’t a team game – it’ll be done as one large group.

Balloon Name Game Rules

For this icebreaker, have the group stand or sit in a large circle. To start off, go round the circle and have each person say their name.

Next, introduce a balloon into the center of the circle. Hit it in the air and call out the name of a young person. You go back to your original place in the circle while the student whose name you said has to run into the center of the circle. They need to hit the balloon up in the air before it hits the ground, calling out the name of another of the teenagers and standing back in the circle themself.

The student who’s just had their name called does the same thing – runs into the circle before the balloon hits the floor, knocks it into the air and calls out another name.

Length of Game

The amount of time that you play this for will depend on how large your group is and how quickly your teenagers get bored of it.

For a small group, you may only need to play for up to 5 minutes, while larger groups might keep this going for 15 minutes or so to make sure everyone gets a turn and to provide more of a chance to learn each other’s names.

Levels of Difficulty

If you want to make this icebreaker a bit harder, here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Don’t let them use their hands to hit the balloon in the air.

2. As they start to learn names more, introduce up to three balloons of different colors. They then have to call out a name and the color of the balloon they’re hitting at the same time. Having different color balloons will help ensure you don’t have three young people going for the same balloon at the same time.

Safety

This game’s similar to the ball name game. With that one though, you can introduce as many balls as you like, whereas for this icebreaker we recommend using a maximum of three balloons.

The reason for this is that if you use more than three, there’s an increased likelihood that the teenagers will run into each other or accidentally kick another player when trying to keep a balloon off the ground using their feet.

Tip

If you have a really large youth group, consider having them all wear a name tag at the start of the game to make it a little easier to remember each other’s names initially.

If you found this idea helpful, we also have a few more name game icebreakers and loads more youth work games.

Question: What would you change to make this balloon name game 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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Ball Name Game – How To Remember Youth Names

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How to remember youth namesThe Ball Name Game is a great icebreaker to play in your youth group to help you – and them – remember each other’s names.

Resources

2+ Balls (can use balls of paper)

Objective

Learn everyone’s name in the group

How To Play

  1. Have the group stand in a circle
  2. Call a student’s name and throw them the ball
  3. They call someone’s name and throw them the ball
  4. Practice getting this process faster and faster
  5. Once the group has become good at calling out a name and throwing the ball to that person, add another ball to the game
  6. So now, two people’s names are being called out and two balls are being thrown around the circle
  7. Introduce as many balls as you would like!

If you liked this icebreaker, check out our other youth group games. We also have more name game icebreakers if you’d like some similar activities.

Question: How do you introduce new group members to each other? Let us know in the comments below.

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Image courtesy of Lauren Mitchell – Flickr Laurenprofeta