Playworks Playbook

Ice Breaker
Ball Toss Race
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Group Size: 10-30
Age Group: K-5th grades
Length of Activity: 10 minutes
Developmental Goal: To combine physical and verbal skills to enhance awareness, learn everyone’s
name
Skills Practiced: Passing, catching, memory and verbal communication
Equipment Needed: One or more balls
Before You Start:
Have the group get into a circle and have one or more balls ready.
How to Play:
The leader will begin by throwing, rolling, or bouncing a ball (depending on the age and skill
level) to another player while saying the other person’s name loudly. Explain that it is very
important to remember who you have passed the ball to.
Keep passing the ball around the circle so that everyone has received the ball one time. You can
have students sit down once they have received the ball, so make sure nobody gets it twice.
When the last person gets the ball have them pass it back to you.
Now without the ball, see if you can go around the circle and say in order the names of the people
you will pass to.
Once students have that, try it with the ball and see how fast they can go.
Mid-point questions:
Who has an idea how to get the ball to everyone more quickly
What do you think about adding a second ball
Shall we time ourselves and then try to beat our time
Closing questions:
What do you think this game teaches Is it fun
Can you think of anything that would make this game better
Variations:
To make the game more interesting you can add more balls and balls of different sizes.
Catch and Throw Style (K-2) – Have the students form a circle around the leader. The leader can
then pass the ball to each player in the circle. When the student catches the ball, everyone in the
class yells out that student’s name. Go around in a circle until everyone has a turn, then randomly
pass the ball and see how fast they can go.
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