Team builder and/or ice breaker games or activities

www.juliabettencourt.com/printables/puzzles/pursegameprint.pdf

That one sounds fun to me. She has several listed on her website. I'm trying to find the instructions for one that I did recently, but it's difficult when you don't know what they called the activity.

We did one at a team building event where you break into groups. Get a pair of garden gloves and a bag with wrapped candy. Each group races the other to unwrap a piece of candy while wearing the garden gloves, and then hand it back to the next person in line. It was actually pretty fun to watch people fumble around.

I like to play dinner party in a group of new people.

You pick a category like movie stars or famous tv characters, something general that will have a lot of options. Then each person (except for the host) writes down who they would invite to a dinner party. Each piece of paper is put in a bowl and the host reads off all of the guests. People have to pay attention because once the guests are read off you can't repeat it until a certain number of people have guessed correctly. When we play we usually wait until 3 guests have been matched before reading the list again.

So after the guests are read off the person to the right or left of the host has to guess who invited a particular person. Sooo they say "Mary, did you invite George Clooney?" If Mary did invite him then she is out and you remove the slip of paper from the bowl. If she didn't invite him then keep the slip in the bowl and Mary is the next person to guess. It goes on and on until the last person has their slip still left in the bowl.

Sometimes we play this with stuff besides people. Like board games or models of cars. It is a favorite at family events.

I have played BINGO with various groups I worked with. I used an online BINGO creator to make custom cards. Everyone got a card and they had to find someone to match what was in each box. The boxes contained subjects like:
Who has a summer birthday?
Who plays an instrument?
Who has an older brother?

You could really personalize it to your group. For newly arrived exchange students in MN one square would contain "Have you eaten something on a stick?"

You could only use each person once, so it made people walk around and talk to new people.

It has always gone over well.

One I used all the time in doing trainings and team buildings -- You need to have a roll of TP (cheap stuff is okay), or a box of paper tissues/Kleenex

The instructions are  "Take enough to do the job and pass it on"

That is it, those are the instructions...        Once everyone there has pulled some off, using ONE square for each fact;

For the lead on the instructing, or the facilitator: 
1) Your name

2) What you do or why there today

3) One personal fact about you
4) The reason why everyone is there
5) Ad Lib something nice about what's going on


And for the Participants:
1) Their name

2) What they do or why there today

3) One personal fact about themselves

... add more about themselves if there are more squares to use. Note: If someone took more than 7 sheets you can stop them and go to the next person.

I've done this with youth groups, adult groups and even military training sessions.  It is cheap, easy, and really fun way to "break the ice."