Icebreakers are simply warm up exercises. They are a fun way of relaxing a group of young people to get them in the mood for working together. All the following icebreakers range from mildly physical to very physical, so you can use them as you wish, depending on how active or otherwise your group is.

Visual | All/any characters

Good for all ages.  Physical. Excellent for developing speaking and listening skills.

Sit participants in a circle on chairs. Give each one the name of a farmyard animal in sequence,
i.e., horse, pig, goat, sheep, cow, going on until everyone has an animal. Nominate one person
to stand in the middle of the circle (or ask for a willing volunteer) and take their chair away - you
now have one less chair than there are participants.

The person in the middle shouts out the name of one of the animals and all participants with that
animal name must dash out of their seats and run to another chair. They cannot run back to their
own chairs and in large groups, they are not allowed to move to the chair next to theirs.

As all the animals are changing places, the person in the middle must also try and find a seat.
When everyone has dashed to swap seats, there will be one person left in the middle again.
He or she calls out the name of an animal again and the whole game starts over again.
If, however, the person in the middle shouts out *Animal Antics* everyone must change places and
move seats.

This game can get quite frantic, so check the excitement levels to make sure there is no shoving
and pushing into chairs.