Teaching middle school can be just as scary for teachers as it is for students. Whether this is your first year as a teacher, or you have spent years teaching, you can still use icebreakers as a way to get to know your new students. These simple activities can help students meet others in the class and make some new friends too.
Shoe Exchange
A fun activity that you can do with your students is a shoe exchange. Have each student take off one shoe and leave it in a pile in the center of the room. Ask the students to walk up to the pile, take out a shoe and find the person who owns it. Once they find the owner, they will need to ask for a name. Have each student then introduce that person before giving back his or her shoe. You can also ask students to share something interesting they learned about their new friends too.
What Am I?
Shayla McGhee of GPB Media suggests playing What Am I? with new students, which is essentially a twist on Pictionary. Pick a topic like favorite actors and have each student write down his or her favorite actor on a piece of paper. Assign students into groups of two, and ask them to take turns acting out the name a partner wrote down. Kids who figure out the name get one point, but if a student cannot figure out the name, the other person gets a point. They can then exchange papers with others to keep playing.
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Paper “Fight”
The only thing you need for this icebreaker is some paper. Give kids a simple list of questions to answer like name, birth date, favorite singer and favorite movie. Once they finish writing down their answers on sheets of paper, ask them to crumple those papers and throw the sheets across the room. The kids must then pick up one of the sheets, read through the answers and find the person who made it. This simple activity gets kids moving and forces them to interact with people they may otherwise never talk to in school.
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
This game is great for those teaching middle school because it encourages those awkward middle school kids to actually focus on and pay attention to each other. Divide the class into groups of two, give each group 30 to 60 seconds to talk and look at each other. You’ll then have each person do something different such as changing his or her hair, taking off a shoe or writing on a hand. The pairs must then look at each other and try to figure out what change(s) the other student made.
Line Up
An easy icebreaker that will work in any middle school classroom is something called line up. You’ll have all the students stand up in a line in the front of the classroom. You’ll then make a statement and ask all students who that statement describes take a step forward. This might include statements about having older or younger students, having summer birthdays or being fans of a certain celebrity. The idea is that the kids will get to know more about each other without feeling like everyone is staring at them. As an alternative to “line up,” students can remain seated and either stand up or raise their hand and say, “that’s me!” when the stated fact describes them.
School icebreakers often require that kids stand up and talk in front of a large crowd, which can make some feel awkward or nervous. When you find yourself teaching middle school, you should look for other icebreakers like these games and activities that will make kids feel more comfortable and confident interacting with their peers.
