Objective

Students will get to know each other via this icebreaker by working as a team to come up with things they have in common.

Materials

Post-it notes

Time Required

10–15 minutes

Procedure

Begin by giving everyone a Post-it note and telling them to stand in a circle. Ask your students to place their Post-it note on the ground. Then, ask for one volunteer to go to the middle of the circle (they also need to take their Post-it note off the ground). The student in the middle of the circle then has to say something that they enjoy or something about them (e.g., they enjoy watching the show “The Big Bang Theory,” or they used to be a Girl Scout). Then, all the students in the surrounding circle need to move to another Post-it note across the circle (they can’t move to the Post-it right next to where they are standing right now). The student left without a spot on a Post-it note then becomes the person in the middle of the circle.

After a couple of rounds of having one person in the middle of the circle, ask for another volunteer to join the person in the middle of the circle (they also need to take their Post-it note off the ground). Now, the two people in the middle need to come to an agreement of what they are going to mention. So, they will need to discuss privately something that they have in common before they mention it to the group. Then, just like before, the students in the surrounding circle need to move to another Post-it note across the circle.

After a couple of rounds of having two people in the middle of the circle, ask for another volunteer to join the two in the middle of the circle and follow what was done previously. You can do this with as many people in the middle of the circle as you want.

Processing

It’s great to see students running around and having discussions like, “I didn’t know that you liked this/that.” When there is more than one student in the middle, those individuals have to find things that they have in common, which is a team-building activity.

Then, consider asking some of the following questions after you have completed the activity:

  • What do you think the purpose of this activity was?
  • What did you find that you have in common with each other?
  • Did you find this activity difficult or easy?

Sarah Smith is a National Honor Society adviser at Highland Regional High School in Blackwood, NJ.

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