Appendix F
Icebreakers, Energizers & Closing Activities
Included are a variety of icebreakers, energizers and closing activities to use during your training. Feel free to adapt them to better meet your needs or create your own.
Icebreakers
Paired Interviews
Time: Allow one to two minutes per participant.
Materials: Scrap paper and pens for participants to jot down notes.
- Pass out postcards or playing cards that are cut in half.
- Instruct participants to fnd the person who has the other half of their card. This gets people up and moving around.
- When all
pairs have matched up, ask them to take
turns interviewing
each
other.
Each person will have four
minutes to learn the following
things
about his
or her
partner:
- Name.
- How they spend their day (e.g., job or other responsibility like care taking for a sick spouse).
- Their interest in or connection to the training topic.
- One hope for the training.
- One interesting thing about them.
- Tell participants that they will be introducing their partner to the entire group when it reconvenes, so they may want to take notes.
- After four minutes, give participants a signal to change partners.
- At the end of eight minutes, or after each person has had a chance to be an interviewer and be interviewed, call the large group back together.
