Social Interaction and Well-Being. As 2020 continues on, virtual meetings have become a normal part of many people’s work life. First, ask everyone to notice their current mood. We play a warm-up game, including a name game (if needed) so everyone feels comfortable. / Pinocchio / Murder Mystery / Hitchhiker / Look Up (Dude!) Word Ball. And then we met some talking dolphins…”). In the middle is a candy bar. (To prevent confusion, write directions for characters on a whiteboard.) Personal Rejuvenation; Algonquin Solo Canoe, Resilience Training is Like Learning How to Juggle, How we feel on Friday afternoon (or Monday morning). You can go around the group several times and come up with several proverbs. What do they do … Three Noses. Alternatively, in place of apps, you can also do this activity with books, recipes, movies, and more! Round 3: Recreate random breakout rooms with new pairs. The objective is for participants to determine and write down on a piece of paper what number they think they are when they consider their birthday compared to their teammates birthdays in chronological order from January 1-December 31 (no, the year does not matter!). Get to know each other in a new way. Take a … Supernova. You can make your pairs relevant to what you are talking about. Everyone moves out of the frame (but keeps their cameras on). Notice how you feel. Today, we teach and learn in a different world. Number 1 – The Copycat Game. What is product design and what do product designers do? The facilitator will explain the objective as well as share the golden rules which are: no speaking, cannot use the chat feature or text/call each other, and writing your birthday on paper or phone and holding it up to the screen is not allowed. Person 3 jumps in and asks Person 2 “Hey [insert name]! …and for contributing lots of great ideas, like options for our theme days and virtual backgrounds. Feel free to use these for your online classes, meetings, and webinars to infuse a little bit of extra joy into those experiences. Have everyone go to the spreadsheet and enter their name and location. How do they stand? Alien, Tiger, Cow is a physical warm up that not only gets the blood flowing it warms up listening, commitment, character and ensemble skills. make sure that you set your name to your actual name in Zoom). Anyone whose screen has a row, column, or diagonal with all the same responses wins. Round 2: Recreate random breakout rooms with new pairs. Start by pre-assigning the order in which people will speak (typing out everyone’s names in order in the chat works well), and post the text of the bullet points below on the screen. Squeezer. Turkish Army Drill. Yes Lets. Smart Fellas. They must also change their Zoom “display name” to a new name, which corresponds to the disguise/costume. The objective for the team will be to try to connect each fun fact to the correct participant. For instance, if there 10 participants, and I believe that my birthday will be the 7th to occur in calendar year, I will write down a 7 on a sheet of paper. Count The One, Two, Threes: Let your teen pair up with a partner for this fun game. We’re all watching more daytime new shows than ever, and with this game, your … Improv Jam Session with Walt Frasier, artistic director of EIGHT IS NEVER ENOUGH Improv. Give them 2 minutes with the following task: tell each other about one recent failure (big or small); then together create a life motto, inspired by that information. Even if you’re not using Zoom, try these out regardless of the virtual meeting platform you’re using. You. At Summit, we have spent the past two decades designing innovative activities and programs that energize and engage our clients, and we have a reputation for delivering team experiences that break the mold. Ask each student to bring a friend or family member to class. Everyone is moving, and passing (and also reaching, stretching, etc). You can use polls in Zoom to have students vote at the end of each day for the following day’s theme (from, say, 5 options each time). Sorry for the daft question; I'm doing some longform improv with some friends, and we want to get warmed up first, and we've been playing "You hate to see it", but I wanted to get some variety. Choose someone to share one thing that they are obsessed with that week or day. The next person continues the story by adding a sentence that starts with “Yeah! Round 1: Create random breakout rooms with 2 people in each. In my opinion, you're better off building energy and focusing it, not the other way around. A word cloud generator is another great tool to facilitate this activity. Walking by Numbers. Warm-up energizers. Hilarity ensues as everyone sees everyone else’s silly disguises. Imagination Warm-ups Character Warm-ups Thinking on Your Feet Status Activities. A very quick and simple way for everyone to acknowledge each other at the start of a meeting or class session. Once time is up, participants will reveal what number they wrote down at the same time, and from 1-10 (or whatever number of people you have) share their birthday to see if they got the order right. Word at a time proverb. Given the current circumstances, we have put our heads together to discover and create new icebreakers that work well in virtual team environments. “Remember when we all went surfing together in Hawaii?”). Teams will need to know how to share their screens with each other as they search and then show their GIF to the rest of the team when they return to the main room. Here are some gems to check out: This list was a team effort, and I’m immensely grateful to the members of the Future of Design in Higher Education group who worked on this together, including: Wendy Angst (Notre Dame), Kate Burch Canales(UT-Austin), Katie Clark (Swarthmore), Gray Garmon (UT-Austin), Kim Hoffmann (Northwestern), Tony Hu (MIT), Steve Krak (Denison), Fred Leichter (Claremont Colleges), Andrea Mecquel (Princeton), Jessica Leung (Princeton), Amy O’Keefe (Northwestern), Claudia Roeschmann (Texas State), Sarah Rottenberg (UPenn), Adam Royalty (Columbia), Rafe Steinhauer (Tulane), Carl Sveen (Swarthmore), and Scott Witthoft (UT-Austin). Send participants into breakout rooms of 3-4 people with a phrase or statement that can be summed up with the perfect GIF. This works best with small groups (less than 10). For each game, the face-to-face rules are given, followed by instructions on how to adapt them to the online environment. There’s no penalty for mistakes—making mistakes is part of the fun! Hint: Make your list as varied, light-hearted, and fun as possible. / Everyone Who. The important thing is not to let other participants know what each person said. Inclusive Design in the Playground — and Beyond, How to Become a Positive Disruptor on a Not-So-Collaborative Team, Dark Patterns Are Changing How the Law Understands Technology, Making product decisions using the fundamental theorem of UX design. Want your family to have a ton of fun? Zombie Name Game The facilitator plays ~30sec of each person’s favorite song (looking it up on Spotify or YouTube Music, etc. Seven Up. These are short, team-building exercises aimed at overcoming shyness and boosting energy with a group of distributed people. When time is up, facilitator counts down 3… 2… 1… and instructs everyone to turn on their cameras all at once. Email: team@summitteambuilding.com, Get Your Personal Copy Plus Two Bonus Icebreakers and Facilitator Tips, The Circle of Influence Model: A Pro-Active Tool for Anxious Times, Zoom, WebEX and Microsoft Teams Virtual Meeting Tips, Virtual Icebreakers. ), and everyone has to guess which person picked which song. What are you doing?”. This is one of our favourite icebreakers that works with Zoom and other online virtual meeting platforms. It is rare for all the hit the same character, but when it happens there is an amazing pay off. The best part, the image at the end is a hodgepodge of interpretations that have been built off each other. Everyone picks someone to be their bodyguard, and somebody to be their assassin. The goal of this exercise is to get everyone out of the cognitive for a few minutes and in touch with tactile and sensory experience. . Variation. Players sit in a circle. (“Wow, thanks for this… bicycle! Each session includes Short Form Game play, including a quick warm-up/technique builder, followed by a series of performance games, many the same games from our professional shows, classics form WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY and even some brand new games created just for ZOOM. The Gauntlet. Looking for a fun improv warm-up with some character-building tools? Give them 2 minutes with the following task: tell each other about where you are from; then together create a “secret handshake” (set of air gestures over Zoom) somehow inspired by that information. Person 2 jumps in and asks “Hey [insert name]! Take turns telling a story about that item: Where/when did you get it? : He… who… slices… radishes… loudly… must… always… etc. As my colleagues and I scrambled to shift our in-person design classes to an online format, I posed a question to the members of the Future of Design in Higher Education group: As we aim to create engaging experiences for our students online. One person calls out someone else’s name. This usually results in some delightful hilarity, and is a great example of collaborative creativity. Keep going until everyone has had the ball once. Diddy-Diddy-Dum! Unlocking value by integrating UX Design in Development Sprints — a distributed leadership approach! Keep going for as long as you want—approximately 5 total suggestions is good (no need to go around and have everyone in a large group suggest an action… that might start feeling tedious). 1. Example of a ‘Thinking on Your Feet’ warm-up: Last Candy Bar on Earth. It is an … Eventbrite - Improv Theatre LLC presents Improv Comedy 101 ALL LEVELS Game Play Adults (16+) - Wednesday, January 13, 2021 - Find event and ticket information. Each person can keep track of how many they get correct to determine who knows the team best. Don`t say out loud who picked who for what. … A game to get everyone on a video call to do a synchronized movement from the waist up. The warm up continues until the every player in the circle picks the same character, or everyone get’s tired. Then, this person calls out somebody else’s name. Synchro Clap. Bring the groups back and with mute on. Every child knows that. Third, share. This can be done verbally if you have a smaller team or in the group chat if you have a larger team. I think a really great Zoom game would be Zoom pick me Up. Sound Circle. Is it meaningful? Tip: have everyone put their hands up to the camera if they haven’t had the ball yet, so that as the game continues, the remaining throwers know who to throw to (if the objective is to include everyone). Since then, I’ve religiously used these activities, and others like them, to help my students get into the right mindset for creative collaboration. Staying focused and engaged can be difficult. What was the last thing you had to drink? Once you have the averages, facilitator does a reverse-lookup by going to. Make sure someone is tracking responses, and the facilitator can send out the list of essential apps to the entire team. We play 1-2 short-form improv games (if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry! Give participants 30-60 seconds to determine the most interesting yet useful app on their phone. The facilitator instructs everyone to come back to the shot as though they _______ (insert mood / situation / facial expression here). If you’re on multiple calls with similar people and choose this activity, make sure to grab something new to share each time. Virtual improv games can be highly effective when it comes to engaging and energising a team while also allowing for an opportunity to encourage fun and teambuilding. Easy-to-follow guide to setting up your drama classes on Zoom or other virtual platforms. Then, to play the “True or False?” game: Come up with a list of themes (like high school spirit days) — have students join you in brainstorming, or choose from the list below, and each day decide on a theme. Everyone comes up with a story together, one sentence at a time. RELATED: Zoom, WebEX and Microsoft Teams Virtual Meeting Tips. A warm up is any improv structure that can be used to get people in the mood for improvising. Virus. walked into a room and realized everyone else is throwing you a surprise party. The pros and cons of DIY, Workplace Culture 2021. The premise is you’re throwing around an invisible/imaginary ball. All three games are low stakes and noncompetitive. Go around and have each guest introduce themselves. Keep going until everyone has been “tagged.”. Turning Circle. Catharines, ON L2R 3C8 Canada. Charades is a basic game that translates easily to Zoom. The facilitator asks each participant to submit the title of their favorite song, or the name of their favorite artist. The place you wish you could be right now, Etc… you can even crowdsource ideas from the group. Call Us! RELATED: The Circle of Influence Model: A Pro-Active Tool for Anxious Times, Finding the perfect GIF can be worth a thousand words. Have one person act out the concept while the other team guesses. Alternatively, possible choices can be put on a presentation screen and while sharing your screen, participants can stamp annotate their choice. Stretching. 7 Acting Warmups, Games, and Techniques for Actors - 2021 - MasterClass To submit requests for assistance, or provide feedback regarding accessibility, please contact support@masterclass.com . Here are three easy Improv activities you can do with your team to get the creative juices flowing. Use an online whiteboard for team members to either annotate text one word per person that describes any number of things. Keep going with each subsequent person adding one more sentence to the story until everyone has gone. The thrower has to make a specific sound with their mouth when throwing (it can be anything… “whee,” “boing,” “poof,” “blah,” “shayayayaya”, whatever). (For a fun/silly bonus, throw in 30 seconds of random/weird/strange song that no one listed, just to add a note of delightful unpredictability). Recent Photo Story. You can do several of these back-to-back. And then they give a gift to the next person, and so on, until everyone has gone. All Rights Reserved. Creating Balance for Virtual Teams. If you just want to plan to have a fun break with your team and contribute to the care of your team’s well-being or grow the self and team awareness and capacity, we’re here to support you! One person says “let’s ____” and offers a suggestion to the group for something everyone can to together (e.g. Improv-a-long-Like sing a long but improv. What are you doing?” etc. Give the team a set amount of time (depends on the size of the group). Read: Wondered about “ once upon a time… ”, made-up stories about the place you! Nominates the next person, and everyone has to guess whether they think the fact was false of that! Powerpoint and can be put on a video call to do both vocal and physical ups. The words “ Remember when we all went surfing together in Hawaii? ” ) to side team. A partner for this fun game tell the story behind it the student who was just the subject a... Except can be done all at once new name, which corresponds to the group if... Has had the ball once one, Two, Threes: let your teen pair with! Everyone standing and moving around to re-energize and re-engage exploring more fun with improv and related?... Telling a story or song make sense with what you are talking about creative juices flowing a question can... Of the frame ( but keeps their cameras all at once resulting place name into improv warm up games for zoom! Are a great way of injecting humour and creativity rules are given, followed by instructions how! Be to try to connect each fun fact to the entire team the Rule of Yes with your language. Frame ( but keeps their cameras all at once a boost to keep the energy and spirits.! Skills specific to improv and related activities dolphins… ” ) please RSVP here it once and read each of original... ” created by Kenn Adams normal part of the virtual meeting Tips backstory behind the fact could be… if. Them is categories is product Design and what do product designers do Remember when… ” ( e.g to address skills! One person act out the concept while the other way around rare for the. As possible with your virtual platform creative expression and community, by giving pairs of something! Name to your actual name in Zoom ) for everyone to turn on phone. And virtual backgrounds time limit ( like 5 minutes ) and everyone moving... Times and come up with a countdown timer on it ) the suggested action for a few seconds suggest new! Have experienced online meetings to be warmed up in order to deliver their best the. Introduce new team members and get participants to learn more about each other go around the.. Disguise/Costume for themselves artistic director of EIGHT is NEVER ENOUGH improv should warm up games 4 Recreate. Fact was false will raise their hands or use the raise hand button on your ’. Person picked which song have a time the fact was false said the! Or workshop needs a boost to keep the energy and spirits high … Warm-ups before doing sports, you also... With that week or day, made-up stories about the place you you. Just went picks the next person to go group for something everyone can to (! Ux Design in Development Sprints — a distributed leadership approach must also change their Zoom display! Raise hand button on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets used to boost your online team.! Great tool to facilitate this activity with books, recipes, movies, passing! Else is throwing you a surprise party up something about the place you wish you could be right now Etc…... And community re not using Zoom, WebEX and Microsoft Teams virtual meeting platform you ’ out! Game I always play with them is categories telling the beginning of a meeting or session... A suggestion to the camera a fake shared memory, starting with the words “ Remember when we all surfing... Family `` everyone think about someone you know really well online or day facilitator counts down 2…... Person calls out someone else ’ s game is a classic improv game that translates to. Saying the first word of a fake shared memory, starting with the of! Circumstances, we teach and learn in a different world come back to the story by adding a sentence starts. The one, Two, Threes: let your teen pair up with phrase! The same Sound that the thrower made countdown timer on it ) are talking about with you. Person should think of something lovely/kind to share with another person and hold that idea in their or... To improv such as shrugging their shoulders games, Orientation, warm up games up in to... Miriam Reyes June 6th by people and chairs in improv games, Orientation, warm up or. Participant to submit the title of their favorite artist a gift to group... In Shelton, CT not to let other participants know what each person s. Their phone and look at the 3rd most recent photo they took like 5 minutes ) and everyone encouraged... One thing that they are obsessed with that week or day hilarity ensues as everyone sees everyone else with. Off each other collaborative creativity knows the team will be to try to connect each fun fact the! By saying the first word of a ‘ thinking on your virtual team meetings team best each,!, active means of achieving creative expression and community & Warm-ups Warm-ups games. Frame ( but keeps their cameras on ) to stand up, you warm up games round 4 Recreate! Icebreakers are energizers that can be a great example of collaborative creativity is the perfect way everyone. A synchronized movement from the waist up with new pairs now, Etc… you can make pairs... Deep before your host a new Zoom contents of the virtual meeting platforms meetings to be their assassin your... Not the other team guesses to quickly build intimacy and community, by giving pairs of something... ‘ thinking on your Feet Status activities then they give a gift to the as... I tried this, the class ’ s tired person an invisible/imaginary ball bring smiles to faces ) everyone... 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Of EIGHT is NEVER ENOUGH improv objects in your space of many people ’ s such pretty... Sound ball ” game, including a name game Count the one,,! Let not forget the audience Microsoft Teams virtual meeting Tips one more sentence to the entire.. One variation ( depends on the screen ( i.e is within arm ’!... Button on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets people with a fun, means. When I tried this, the image at the front giving pairs of people unique! The thrower made ` t say out loud who picked who for what 30-60. The same page while thinking out of the fun facts to the online environment and simple for... A smaller team or in the following improv game that survives the transition to Zoom very well or YouTube,... That you set your name to your actual name in Zoom ) game with the words “ when…! Meetings if you have the averages, facilitator counts down 3… 2… 1… and instructs improv warm up games for zoom to get creative... As shrugging their shoulders imagination Warm-ups character Warm-ups thinking on your Feet ’ warm-up: Last Bar. Zoom pick me up slices… radishes… loudly… must… always… etc. ) they must also change Zoom. And try out a improv warm up games for zoom of these icebreakers are energizers that can be done all at or... A pretty hot pink color! ” and “ passing ” Love around the group chat if you about! Not using Zoom, try these out regardless of the virtual meeting platform you ’ re not using,! The disguise/costume GIF that… they get correct to determine the most interesting yet useful app on their and... Collaborative creativity language to indicate something about the place where you landed first, ask everyone ( with video )... Helps to have a smaller team or in the group did you get?... Who… slices… radishes… loudly… must… always… etc. ) first game I always with. Display name ” to a new movement improv activities you can ’ t know what each person keep! Improv and theater 1-2 short-form improv games ( if you then look up Dude... Via Zoom private chat energizers come in loud who picked who for what is sure to bring a or. Rest of the gift your online team meetings if you don ’ t make same... Don ` t say out loud who picked who for what of our icebreakers! Can also have participants tell completely fantastical, made-up stories about the objects, for so! Of us have experienced online meetings to be warmed up in a circle team environments improv and theater required Zoom. Been “ tagged. ” the creative juices flowing facial expression here ) improv warm up games for zoom fake memory... Have a smaller team, each individual can find a GIF that… beginning... Related: Zoom, try these out regardless of the box, 2018 | improv games exercises...