Sing Me the Song of Your People

by Ayra Esteladil
(Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, England )

(Photo from ColKorn1982)
In order to prepare for this game, the host needs to make about 100-150 "flash cards”. These cards will remain blank on one side, and have the lyrics to a song on the other side.

Chose songs that fit with the age range of the people attending for example if this game is to be used as a game among young children, use music from children’s entertainment (Disney, nursery rhymes, Sesame Street songs, etc.)

If this game is to be used for the elderly in the nursing home use songs from their generation (polka, hits from the 40’s-60’s, and traditional folk songs) or for age ranges in between I would select from among the main genres; pop, country, and contemporary Christian.

Once you have all the cards made out, sort them by Artist (I also print out a couple of lists of the songs with the artist). Lastly, you are going to need something to mark the cards with. I would use a pencil (just have everyone put their initials).

Rules for the game:

1. Each person picks 5 of their favorite songs from the list, and puts their initials on the top of the card above the title.


2. Starting with the individual with the birthday closest to the present date, go around clockwise.


3. Whoever’s turn it is has two choices; they can either share a story from their life, or they can say "Sing me the song of your people".


4. When someone says "Sing me the song of your people" the person who is “it” randomly grabs a card from those facing down on the table.


5. The card and symbol are then revealed to everyone, and the person who originally chose that card gets a point.


6. At this point you have 2 choices for how you want to play it i.e. The person's whose initials on the card must sing the song on the card (at least the refrain- the whole song if desired) or everyone sings the song


The person who has the most cards drawn is the winner. Enjoy!

Funniest Party Game - Saddle Up

(Photo from John McGuire)
Break the entire group into pairs at random. Emphasis that the pairs or "teams" can not know each other or have met previously. The teams are then told choose one member (the smaller of the two) to be ready to jump on the others back.

This icebreaker is kind of like a large game of musical chairs...only using people instead on inanimate objects! The leader of the game will turn on music, and let the fun begin, The entire group then to intermingle, as the music plays, constantly moving.

Teams should be told to not stay close to each other, walk in opposite directions and don't pay attention to where the other is. When the music is stopped partners need to quickly find each other, with the one partner jumping on the back of the other partner.

The last team to find each other and jump on is eliminated and need to sit to the side and help referee. After a team has won everyone must pick a different partner, and you can play as many rounds as desired.

The more rounds you play and different team mates that you have equate to more people meeting each other, and becoming more comfortable with a new group of people.

While I have never seen prizes given out to the winning teams, it is always an option if you wanted to add another incentive to turn up the energy of the game even higher.

This game is best in a large group of people (like when a freshman college class is doing orientation) as its more challenging and fun. When you are constantly moving around waiting for that music to stop you relax, and because no one knows each other often times you have people jump on the wrong persons back!

Its a fast paced and fun game, and jumping around on other people makes the whole getting to know each other experience less awkward!

Never Have I Ever Met You

(Photo from Chris Waits)
You would start out by saying never have I ever. Then ask the person there name as a general starting question. So be like never have I ever met you because I don't know your name what is it?

Then the other person gets to ask a return question never have I ever met you because I don't know what kind of car you drive. The two could go back and forth till they are both familiar with each other and feel that they have a good grasp of the type of person they are talking to.

This would also allow them to ask specific questions they are pondering about the person, and I'm sure most people have played the never have I ever game so they will get a little bit of humor out of it as well hopefully.

Also with this added humor it should help break the ice and hopefully allow people to open up more and become more involved in the activity. But yeah never have I ever met you because I didn't know you existed.

You could even come up with a question bank before you started the activity just so you could give people that aren't that creative something to pull questions from so you could keep them involved and give them a reason to participate in the game.

Another idea obviously is to like have a 5 - 10 question maximum between the people and then rotate obviously so everyone has a chance to introduce and ask questions to everyone and you can get everyone inter mingled and involved.

I believe this game could really be a good ice breaker especially if you had alcohol involved you could also add shots into the mix after asking every question you could morph it into a drinking game as well, but if you had a younger crowd you could offer candy or some other kind of treat for participating so people had incentive to be a part of the game.

The Nail Polish Game

by Jaime
(Syracuse, NY, USA )

(Photo from Arienne McCracken)
This game is best suited for a girl’s night where everyone would like to get to know the other guests better.

Guys can get involved too, only if they don’t mind having their nails painted!

It’s a great way to get to know new friends and learn even more about older friends. Every guest brings several bottles of nail polish to the party, or the host can supply all the bottles, the brighter and glitterier, the better.

Everyone sits in a circle with the nail polish bottles in a circle in the middle, and each bottle is standing up right, a few inches from the bottles on the left and the right of it.

One color is laid on its side in the center of the nail polish circle. One of the guests starts off the game by spinning the nail polish bottle. The leader then picks one person to ask a question to.

Depending on the group, the question can be something simple like a favorite color, something secret, or something dirty. The person picked has to answer the question and paint one of their nails with the color that the middle bottle is pointing to.

The one that just answered the question then spins the bottle and picks another player to answer a question. If a person gets two of the same color in the course of the game, they can spin again if they’d like a different color or they can keep the same color.

The game goes on until someone has painted all of their finger or toe nails. Each person has to keep their crazy nails for at least one day unless work or school doesn't allow painted nails.

For an extra twist, add makeup to the circle and have wild makeovers in addition to crazy nails!

Pin the Apron on the Groom

by M. T. Rich
(Canton, MS USA )

(Photo from mollystevens)
Quite often in the south when a young lady is about to get married, a group of her friends will get together and give her a shower. Now this is not the typical shower we normally think about with soap and water, but rather a shower of gifts to help prepare her for new home with her new husband.

The gifts can be personal in nature or something for her house. Often a shower will be themed based, like a kitchen shower, a linen shower, a lingerie party, or even a miscellaneous shower where any type of gift is appropriate.

This particular game is a good Icebreaker game for a kitchen shower. There is a little preparation that needs to be done before the party starts.

First you can use a fathead of a well-built male if you want, or using a roll of parchment paper or bulletin board paper, pull off a strip of paper approximately 6 feet long (or as long as the fiancé is tall, if you prefer.

Cut out a giant paper doll from this strip of paper. You can leave this cut out as is, but it is much more fun to personalize it by making a photo copy of a picture of the groom's face to put on your paper doll to represent the groom.

You can draw clothes on him or cut some out of other paper to dress your doll as you see fit. If this is a party for ladies of various ages, you might want a shirt and pants on your doll. If it is a group of very close friends of the bride only, then you might want him clothed in underwear only. You can let your imagination run wild here.

(Also, for mature, fun loving ladies, you can make this game a little risqué by inserting an inflated sausage shaped balloon in the underwear just before the bride (or everyone)takes her turn at the game, but not if someone would be offended by this addition.)

Once your cutout is like you want him to be, you can pin or tape him to a door or board that can be brought into the room for the game. You do not want him visible to the ladies until it is game time--especially if you plan to use the balloon addition, so if you put him on the door, cover it in some way if you can.

You will also want to have an apron cut out of different colors of paper for each person to use when her turn comes. Each apron should have a pin stuck through the center front at the waist band area that will stick into the paper cut out. (If you are not using the balloon feature, you could use a piece of tape to stick the aprons to the cutout rather than straight pins.)

Now the object of the game is for each party attendee (blindfolded and spun/turned around in a circle three times before she makes her attempt) to pin your apron as close as possible to the proper place for an apron to go, and the lady who comes the closest is given the prize, which traditionally is passed on to the bride.

This is usually some little kitchen gadget. Of course if you are using the balloon feature, anyone who bursts the balloon must blow up its replacement and insert it in the proper place before the next person gets her turn, but you don't announce that penalty until someone accidentally bursts the balloon.

The prize for this game could be a chef's apron or a tool used for cooking out since that is the cooking most men do, especially if you are having a couples kitchen shower. For some reason, people find it humorous to think a man in an apron is "henpecked" while every girl loves a guy who can and does cook. This game usually has everyone laughing and having a good time in short order.

Talk to Mr. Wizard

by Sunnie P
(Chicago, IL, USA)

(Photo from edadkins)
When you are going to a party, or somewhere that games will be played, be sure some friend knows that you will be calling Mr. Wizard.

When everyone has played their games, you say "I know a game that you will not believe, does anyone want to play, of course they do.

When you gave your player, ask if anyone has a deck of cards, they will all yell and say they are tired of card tricks, but not this one. You have someone shuffle the cards and have your person pick a card and show it to everyone in the room.

Then you say I have a friend named "Mr. Wizard" do you want me to call him and have tell you, your car?

Naturally they say yes.

You dial your friend, who answers and say can "I speak to Mr. Wizard".

He says "spades, hearts, club, diamonds.

When he says the suit you want, you say "Yes I want to speak to the Wizard".

You say, Yes, Mr. Wizard. then he says ace, two, three, and when he says your number ,you say Hello Mr. Wizard, I have someone who wants you to tell him his card, and you say the suit and number of the card and hang up.

Colors of Life

by Angela Wills
(Raleigh, North Carolina, USA)

(Photo from Lourdes S. via Flickr)
A great ice breakers game to play is to have everyone stand in a circle with a bag of m&ms, ask everyone to take as many or as little m&ms as they want to take onto a napkin.

After everyone has taken the amount they want to take, have a system where each color has a meaning behind it and that meaning is the information about themselves that they have to share.

Make sure it isn't something basic like their name, that should be shared outright and before they start. The codes can go something like this, each red candy has to be associated with a story of something embarrassing that happened to you.

A yellow candy has to be a detail about your family, green has to be something about your education, blue has to be details about what you do for a living, brown has to be a detail about something that is your favorite, like a favorite food or color.

The details of what each color means can be adjusted for the crowd, for example if you are playing this with a group of people who are work colleagues, you would probably want to keep it professional and not ask any questions about someone’s personal life or having one color be a detail about your dating history.

If it is a group that is a family, it might be nice to share details about things you enjoy during times when you’re not together, such as having an orange candy be a detail about your best friend that they may not know anything about. If it is a sports group, you can have all the candy colors related to something athletic.

This is a flexible and fun game that can be as serious or playful as you want it to be, and the best part is after you're done playing, you have not only fun information about each other, you also have a sweet treat!

Suggested by Angela Wills, USA, North Carolina, Raleigh

Candy Bar Ice-Breaker

(Photo from Anthony Easton)
This game works best when you have a group of people who do not know each other very well, and you'd like for them to get to know one another a little better.

Materials needed: A variety of "Fun Size" candy bars.

You should have one for every player. Make sure you have various types of candy bars (e.g. Milky Way, Almond Joy, Milk Duds, etc.) as that is the basis for the game.

Preparation: Set the candy bars in the center of the room - grouping all of the bars of the same type together into the same pile. You should have a pile of bars for each type of candy you've purchased.

How to Play: When you give the signal, players rush to grab their favorite type of candy bar from one of the piles. If you prefer, you can have players grab their favorite as they arrive, and hold them until time for the game to begin.

Once everyone has their favorite bar, they are to assemble together by type of bar - that is, all of the Milky-Way people would group together, and all of the Almond Joy people would gather together, etc.

Then challenge each group as follows:

"You now know one thing about the people with whom you are standing that you have in common - you each enjoy the same type of candy bar. Your task is to learn the names of each person in your group and one other fact about each person.

The first group that can come up and introduce one another, calling them by name wins".

Judging for winner: When a group comes forward claiming to be finished, simply pick people at random from the group and ask them either the name or the fact about someone else in the group - until all in the group have had a chance to share.

This simple game allows strangers to find things in common with others in the larger group and lets them learn the names of some of the other people in attendance.

The Picnic Game

(Photo from Flickr upload bot | Wikimedia Commons)
This icebreaker usually works best with a crowd of ten but it works well with 4-5 people involved also. I like to call it the Picnic Game.

There has to be at least one person knowing how the game operates. This person goes around asking people what they would like to bring to this imaginary picnic and depending on their response determines if they can bring it.

It doesn't matter what they decide to bring to the picnic, all that matters is if they say "umm" somewhere in their response. People tend to get really into this game trying to figure out the pattern that allows some people to bring items to the picnic and others not.

Even though it may sound simple it takes a good amount of time before everyone gets it. The game gets more fun every time someone else figures out the pattern because the anxiety rises in the others who didn't figure it out.

Before someone figures out the trick to the game, make sure they don't scream it out. Just test them a few times asking what do you want to bring to the picnic. Once it is understood that they know the trick, they can ask people what they want to bring to the picnic also.

I like to end the game when the last person doesn't know the pattern because it is just funnier like that.

A good follow up to that game is the Ball Game. It is very similar but different in the code. You pass this imaginary ball through the people at the gathering but what you say "right" after you pass the ball to someone that means that person actually has the ball.

For example here is a dialogue, "I pass the ball to Maria, she passes the ball to John, right, but John passes the ball to me. Who has the ball? If you follow the game right John has the ball.