Fun icebreaker questions that will get you off to a great start with your students in 2024

You’re a teacher and it’s the end of August. It will soon be back to school time, and you’re already getting ready to meet your new pupils or students. It can certainly be an intimidating time, but also terribly exciting! If you love what you do, you will not be able to wait to get back in the classroom and to see your students.

However, to get things off to the best start for the year, and create a rapport with the new kids, it is important for you to introduce yourself, get to know the class group better, find things in common, and help stimulate ideas and exchange.

To help even the shyest pupils and students express themselves, and make class activities more fluid and dynamic, nothing beats an ice breaker! If the student or school activity is well chosen and fun, it will break the ice, it will relax the atmosphere of entire class, and it will loosen up tongues, in next to no time. Here are some of our favorite ice breakers for students that will give teachers some great ideas for the new school year!

How to set up and deliver an ice breaker activity

Properly setting up and delivering your student ice breaker activity or game will be as important as the questions and contents it contains. You can certainly do your ice breaker on paper, but it might get a little complicated with a bigger class or group of participants. The very best tools to use are interactive, online tools such as Wooclap! Then, all you will need to do is:

• Project your icebreaker questions on the class board
• Allow your kids or students time to think and respond to each icebreaker question
• Display the responses live, as a word cloud, poll results, or in a grid
• Allow your group or class to discuss and explain their choices

Alternatively:

• Students can ask each other the questions. All you have to do is post them up on the class board or online, and then split the class into partner pairs, or different groups, perhaps arranged in a circle. This can be fun and help put the shyest of students at ease.
• You can even have your students guess your answers first! This is a great, fun way to introduce yourself to your class, and be sure to gain their sympathy from the start. Then you can let them introduce themselves!

Create an ice breaker with Wooclap

Icebreaker questions by type of student

H3 Icebreakers for middle grade pupils

1. What is your favorite hobby, game or pastime?
2. What superpower would you love to have?
3. What pet animal would you love to have?
4. What is the best gift you have ever received?
5. If you could give up one food forever, what would it be?

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Fun icebreaker questions for high school students

1. What would be your DJ name?
2. If your pet could talk, what do you think it would say to you?
3. If you were an ice cream flavor, what would it be and why?
4. What person do you admire and why?
5. Write down one word to define yourself.

Icebreaker questions for college students

1. What subject are you looking forward to studying this year in school?
2. What comes to mind when you hear the word “history” (or whatever subject you are teaching)?
3. If you were teaching this course, instead of me, what would you focus it on?
4. If you could meet yourself 5 years ago, what would you say to yourself?
5. What old person habits do you think you might have?

Need an icebreaker for your meetings at work ? Check out our article!

Icebreaker questions for students by question type

Word association

1. What do you think of when you hear the word “mathematics”?
2. What word do you associate with the word “teaching”?
3. What do you think of when you hear the word “future”?
4. What does the word “homework” make you think of?
5. What word comes to mind when someone tells you about the characters of Romeo and Juliet?

Other ice breakers for meetings or distance learning courses

Would you rather...?

1. Explore space, or explore the sea?
2. Have the power to fly or be invisible?
3. Have four legs or four arms, while everyone else is normal?
4. Go a day without eating, or a day without your phone?
5. Stay at home forever, or never be able to go home again?
6. Have to get up every day at 6 am, or go to bed every night at 9 pm?
7. Have 5000 dollars or be 5 years younger?
8. Live in silence forever, or live with a constant soundtrack to your life?
9. Eat breakfast or dinner for every meal?
10. Sit forever, or never be able to stop walking?

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If you were...?

1. An animal, what would you be?
2. A food?
3. A TV show or series?
4. A fictional character?
5. A period of history?

Have you ever...?

1. Been abroad?
2. Skipped a class?
3. Cooked a dish that was totally inedible?
4. Won a competition?
5. Met a famous person?

Need to lead a team building activity? Check out our team building ice breakers!

Final tips: what makes a good icebreaker question for students?

A great icebreaker activity can be a series of fun questions that helps create a relaxed atmosphere and a climate of trust, conducive to fruitful exchanges throughout the year.

To avoid wasting those precious first few minutes of your first class - they say you never get a second chance to make a good first impression - make sure you follow these few rules to make your icebreakers successful.

• Icebreaker questions should be tailored to the specific situation and audience:

From our list of questions, select ones you think correspond to the age and level of your audience. While fun icebreaker questions and games can be great for young kids, pupils and first year students, questions more focused on the subject of your discipline or on the topics you will be teaching that year will surely be preferable for final year students.

• Be careful not to make anyone feel uncomfortable:

This is a terrible way to start off the year with your pupils or students, especially younger kids! Therefore, try to write neutral questions that are neither too personal nor intrusive, and whose answers are sure not to embarrass your icebreaker activity participants. A fun check in question or a warm up question for students is always a good idea.

• Watch the timing of the activity:

Define how long the icebreaker activity should take, based on the number of students, participants or people attending your workshop or class. Consider giving enough time for each student in the class or group to express themselves, without sacrificing too much of the class time, unless you think it best. Think about whether your students will be doing the icebreaker activities on paper or online, and how much time the activities will therefore take.

• Bring all the necessary equipment for your icebreaker game or activity:

It’s best to check in advance that the computer and projector will be working correctly, and that your students will be able to connect to the class activity, for example, using the Wooclap code you share. All these details will make the difference!