12 first lesson icebreakers
Last updated: 15/11/2023
Contributor: Written by the Teachit team
12 fun ideas for first lesson icebreakers with KS2-4 students to encourage lots of engaged conversations between students.
Help students to get to know each other and create a sense of community in your classroom with a range of activities, from Taskmaster-style time trials to Whodunit guessing games.
These flexible ideas will help students to feel instantly more comfortable with new peers and quickly gain confidence in their new class.
Perfect for upper KS2 children, for transition lessons with excited new year 7s and with older KS3-4 students too, the icebreaker ideas are flexible and easy to adapt to suit your class or setting.
Example icebreakers from the teaching resource:
- Whodunit? Students write 3-5 silly or unusual facts about themselves anonymously on a card/piece of paper, with an optional clue about their identity, and pop it in a bag/hat/box. The rest of the class take it in turns to read out each student’s facts and try to guess the secret identify of the writer.
- Taskmaster. Based on the silly games in the TV show Taskmaster, create a series of 30-60 second timed challenges for students to complete in small groups. Whether the challenge is 'fastest to blow up a balloon' or 'cover yourself in sticky notes while blindfolded', or you want to try more elaborate ‘crack the code’ activities (or even stop-motion movies with potatoes), you can google a range of fun games to try.
- Would you rather…? Be invisible or be able to fly? Go back in time or travel to the future? Have an endless supply of sweets or chocolate? Be able to talk to animals or speak any language? Eat breakfast or dinner for every meal? Have Spiderman or Thor’s powers? Working in pairs, encourage students to discuss a range of ‘Would you rather?’ questions and make up some of their own to ask other pairs.
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