Ice Breakers for Adults

With preconceived notions, biases and prejudices, adults take a little extra time to loosen up than children. Which is why, if you are conducting a seminar, meeting or a class for a bunch of adults, you will find them to be reticent. With a few ice breakers, you can get these adults to mingle and get the best of group activities. Knowing your audience is the first rule of this activity. Since you are working with adults, keep the movement to minimal for total participation. You can change the rules as per your needs for flexibility of the game.

Fun Ice Breaking Activities

Story of My Life
Each member will be given a pen and a paper. This game creates a hypothetical situation. Say, your publisher has given you a deadline to script a story about yourself in 10 minutes. Now fold the paper into half. On the front page, write the title of your book. On page two the table of contents, stating the place you were born in, your name and the other details you'd want to share. On page three draw a picture of your family and on the last page draw a picture of how you'd want to retire. Blow the whistle at the end of the stipulated time. Pair up people and ask them to exchange papers and enact the role of publisher, trying to sell the story of their partner's life to the remaining members.

What's Cooking?
Once again it's a situation reaction test. The situation is that you have inherited a restaurant. However, the recipes inside it are all disorganized and scattered all over the place in bits and pieces. To do this, cut out ingredients and distribute them to all members. Once you blow the whistle, all the members have to find their respective ingredients and recipes. Whenever a group gets done, they need to shout out, bon appetit!

ABCs of Me
Here, each member has to enact the role of a teacher. The remaining members are the students. The participant has to teach the students ABCs by drawing something about his/her life. Don't stretch this game this Z. Give each member a cluster of any 5 alphabets and proceed with the game.

Scavenger Hunt
Similar to treasure hunt, this game is a lot of fun and highly interactive. You will need to make clues and hide the items before hands. Make two groups and give out the first clue. Give the teams a time limit of 15 - 20 minutes to collect all the items and find the treasure. Here the members can interact with each other as much as they want, but cannot leave the room. Finally, when the treasure is found it has tobe shared with the remaining team members.

Such games bring down the walls of inhibition and ease out the mood in a roomful of strangers. They have always been used to create a sense of comfort and belonging amongst people. I hope these games serve the purpose and help you facilitate the meeting better. Have fun!