Help Your Kids Interact Openly With These Icebreaker Activities

Many kids feel shy and lack confidence, when it comes to interacting with other people in a group. Children don't even know how to start with small talk, which might perhaps turn into a conversation. It is thus, very important to engage kids in icebreaker activities or games. This way, you kill their hesitation to talk to others, and make all of them comfortable with each other. Let's look at a few of these activities.

Fun Icebreaker Activities

Make a Line
Ask the kids to stand in a line, according to their birth month, i.e., kids born in January stand first, followed by those born in February, and so on. Also, those born in a particular month, have to further stand according to their birthdate. For this, the kids will have to interact with each other―to know where they will fit in the line. They will thus speak to one another a couple of times, and become acquainted.

Similarities
Every kid has to find a partner of sort, with whom he will share three common things. These common things or similarities, can be stuff like year of birth, school, living on the same street, etc. While trying to find these 'similarities', the children will talk to a large group, and get to know a lot about them. Also, these similarities won't only make them acquainted with each other, but also provide a common ground to develop more conversation.

Knotty Affairs
To play this game, ask the kids to stand in a circle. Next, ask each kid to hold another kid's hand with his left hand, except for the ones who are standing immediately next to him. Once they are done, ask them to disengage themselves from this knot, without leaving each other's hands. To make this game even more complicated, you can ask the kids to use their right hands as well. This game can also be used as a problem solving activity.

Answer Me!
Sometimes, simply asking the kids a few questions and having them answer these in front of others, can help them get over their shyness. So, sit with the kids in a circle and one by one ask them some interesting questions. Here are a few for help.

• Which is your favorite food? Why?
• Who is your favorite person in the group?
• Which vegetable do you think you resemble the most?
• What is it that you like about your city?
• If you could change one thing, what would that be?
• If you were made a teacher for one day, what would you want to teach?
• What do you do in your free time?
• Who is your favorite superhero?

Besides these, other fun icebreaker games that you can conduct are: passing the parcel, wherein whoever has the parcel when the music stops has to introduce himself, or Chinese whispers. So, the next time you have a group of enthusiastic children with you, show them how to have fun by making them play such interesting games!