Customer Reviews

201 Icebreakers: Group Mixers, Warm-Ups, Energizers, and Playful Activities

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are few books on icebreakers/teambuilders that I've found to be useful with college students ( I work in Student Affairs). This book, however, offered many activities that were useful not only for just 'breaking the ice' but also for applying them to the many educational workshops we do in this field. There was also a very helpful section called "Icebreakers for the Non-Icebreaker types" that was both interesting and practical. Because I work with such a diverse range of students, I struggle to find icebreakers that are not geared solely to the extroverted-types. This collection gives a number of activities that are beneficial to teambuilding while respecting the different learning/interaction styles we see in our students. Out of the 201 offered in the book, I have found at least 180 of them that I will use as integral parts of the next staff training. This book also offers activities for groups ranging from 8 participants (good for small staffs) to 400 participants (good for all-hall activities)!

It was disappointing to find so few ideas for a group of 100 business people who don't know each other. Most of the activities are far too personal for such a group, involving sharing personal information or touching. In addition, many of the activities have no "closure": they simply end, leaving us to wonder, what was the purpose of THAT? Many of the activities would be fine for very informal gatherings where being silly (marching in a parade, charades, making a human octopus) and getting personal are appropriate. But business people--even my lighthearted group--expect some degree of professionalism and purpose associated with such activities.

This book had several good, usable activities. Like all books of this type, you just have to weed through a few to get to one that will work for your particular group. I really like the grid at the beginning of the book that matches activities to intended purposes. The only complaint I had was that many of the activities required quite a bit of prep work up front--particularly in the form of photocopying handouts.

By the way, if you don't want to pay the hefty price tag, get "Quick Meeting Openers for Busy Managers." It's also pretty good (and no photocopying prep work!).

Both of these books are 100 times better than "the big book of icebreakers"! That one had very few worthwhile activities.

While many of the activities might suit a business, I was able to find quite a few for small groups in our church. The instructions are thorough and handouts are well done. My only suggestion for the publisher would be to make the book so the pages could be torn out and put in a three ring binder.

I work in a school and this book has already helped me plan several fun activities for teachers, directors, and students. I highly recommend it!

201 Icebreakers : Group MIxers, Warm-Ups, Energizers, and Playful Activities

Excellent book: great ideas use the book on daily bases with my clients. The book has helped my clients relate to each other. I would highly recommend.

There are a quite a bit of icebreakers to choose from, and we have used them at a lot of workshops/events. THANKS!!

I had an offsite meeting and needed to prepare a few team exercises quickly. I found the ABC game to work great. I thought this would be easy and I would have to run the alphabet a few times to declare a winner. Much to my surprise I only got 3/4 of the way through and it really showed who was listening during the meeting.

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I teach spiritual development classes and i use ths book for some of the beginnings of classes and workshops, to help people get to know each other. It has lots of great exercises.

There are some fun exercises in this manual, but by the main they are labored. There's plenty of books out there in this field; I suggest you look further.