Ultimate Breakage of an Iceberg (Party Edition) – ICEBERG and LAVA

When hosting a friend’s baby shower, I found a very humorous ice breaker. It was literally the job of each person to break the ice! In order to play this game, you will need ice cube trays (one tray compartment per person attending) and small plastic babies.

1" Miniature Plastic Favors
Package of 144

The babies should be an inch in size or smaller, depending on the size of your ice cube tray. The plastic babies can usually be found in craft stores. The last supply needed is water, which is easily accessible for most. Tap water is fine, but do consider that it should be clean water.

To play this game, I needed to prepare for it at least a day prior to the baby shower. I took each of the ice cube trays and filled each compartment half full with water. (Note: Fill as many compartments as you have people attending.)

The half filled trays were placed into the freezer until ice cubes were formed. Once completely frozen, I took the trays with half size ice cubes out and placed a small plastic baby in each compartment (baby, face down).

I then filled the remainder of the compartments with water until each was completely full. The trays were returned to the freezer until completely frozen again. When all of the women arrived the next day, they were seated in a circle, by the mother-to-be.

Dixie, Plastic Cups

After quick introductions, I took the ice cubes out of the freezer and placed each one in a Dixie cup. The women were instructed to each take a cup and wait. Once each person had a cup, I then instructed the women to do whatever it took, no flames allowed, to free their babies from the ice.

The first person to free their plastic baby from their ice was instructed to jump up and shout, "My water broke!" This person was awarded a small gift for winning the game. The laughter levels from this game, and the creative ideas that came about, were astounding! Some women were rubbing on the cubes, others were breathing or sucking on the cubes, and some tried stomping on the cubes.

A few women even worked together with their body heat! It was definitely a game which could be taken out of context and therefore good to be played without the presence of children! I must say it definitely was an "ice breaker," and fortunately the only water that didn't break, was that of the mother-to-be.

Meeting new people can be stressful for anyone. If you're hosting a party, chances are that not everyone knows one another. One fun way to get everyone laughing and relaxed is with the gorilla game.

It's a silly icebreaker game that we used to play all the time in Buffalo, New York. You need a group of people that are all good sports (a few drinks won't hurt).

In the gorilla game, two people are asked to wait in another room (only one of them has to be someone who hasn't played the game).

Once they're outside, everyone stands or sits in a circle, or around a table.

The rules are simple:

• when someone comes in the room, you ask them their name.
• Then everyone rehearses a quick chant. If their name is Jerry, it goes like this: "Welcome to the circle Jerry! Ooga booga, ooga booga!"
• At the end of the chant, everyone shakes their hands under their armpits and grunts like a gorilla.

The trick is that the group will teach the chant to the first person to come in (who has never played the game). When that person comes in, for example, "Jerry," the group does the chant to welcome him, complete with the hands shaking under the armpits and grunting like gorillas.

Jerry is then sent to get the next person and bring him or her into the room.

Now the trick: when the group does the chant this time, everyone only does: "Welcome to the circle, Second person,. Oooga booga, ooga booga!"

Then, everyone else is silent, while Jerry, thinking the chant goes on, shakes his hands under his armpits and grunts like a gorilla all by himself!

Everyone has a good laugh, including Jerry, and everyone knows the names of at least two people.

It's a great silly icebreaker, because everyone

• can goof around
• learns some people's names
• and has a shared joke that can start conversations.

It can also be repeated by sending more than two people outside, but it only works in pairs (i.e., you can send four people out, buy it won't work with three)

About a year ago I was invited to a friend's birthday party.

My friend, who we will call "Lisa" is an extremely social person and knows loads of people.

I, on the other hand, tend to be rather shy and do not meet new people easily. To say that I was nervous would be a criminal understatement.

Within ten minutes, I was ready to high-tail it out of there because I literally knew only the birthday girl.

I hadn't lived in Manhattan long and it was at this time that one of her co-workers suggested a game of "Thumper."

"Thumper" consists of any number of players be it 2 or 30 (although the more players the more difficult it becomes).

All players choose some sort of facial expression or hand symbol, such as crossed eyes or a peace sign. Have every player display their sign to the other players.

Try your best to remember each one.

Once all the of players signs have been shown to everyone the game begins.

All participants must have both hands on the table or bar and begin tapping each hand, one then the other, right....left....right....left....and so on which begins at a relatively normal tempo but will gain speed as the game progresses.

Choose a player to begin, in our case it was Lisa.

• She first performed her sign and then the sign of another player.

• The other player whose sign she performed must now do theirs and yet another player who again, does theirs and someone else's.

• This continues until someone makes a mistake.

This can be a drinking game as well, but a word of caution: if you are at all uncoordinated, you may want to just watch for a few rounds.

Needless to say, Thumper broke the ice for many of us at Lisa's party and I and everyone there had a fantastic time.