Icebreaker: Find your pair!

This activity is particularly useful for the first day of classes, when the students still don't know each other. However, I've found different ways to make variations in order to use them at anytime.

Level: All
Materials: (Depending on the level) pieces of paper containing matching information / paper cuts 
Target Vocabulary/Grammar: Any - Personal Information/Making questions and answering them. 

Prep time: 10-30 minutes (according to  the level of the class and the topic/method chosen.

I love this activity, since you can adapt it in 1000 different ways depending on the age and level of students in your class. The idea of this all is to get students mixed and allow them to talk to each other and probably get to make new friends within the class. This game, unlike most of what I post here, takes a bit of preparation time at home but on the bright side, you get to be creative!!  :)

So, at home pick a topic depending of the age of the group you're working with. It can be anything. You need to divide the information in two and write it in separate pieces of paper. The amount and level of information provided varies according to the proficiency level of the class. 

Example:

Elementary Level:

For young kids who can't read I suggest bringing matching pictures like an apple and the apple tree, a flower and the flowerpot, all depending on the vocabulary you wanna use. 

Also, for young kids who can read, you can write the word on one piece of paper and bring the matching paper cut.

Colors: Write the name of a color in one piece of paper and paint a circle of that color in another.

Objects: Write the name of an object in one paper and stick a picture of the object in the another.

Pre-Intermediate/Intermediate:

Celebrities: Write the name of a celebrity in one piece of paper and his/her personal information (age, nationality, job, etc.) on another.

Sports: Choose the name of a sport and write in on one piece of paper and then the necessary equipment or the rules of that sport in another.

Advanced: 

Emotions: Write the name of an emotion in one piece of paper and its description on another.

Phrasal Verbs: Write a phrasal verb and it's definition on different pieces of paper.

You'll need two baskets or bags to separate the pieces of paper into A and B. Then, you'll divide the class in half. If there's an odd number of students, just have one of them take two pieces of paper. Half of the students will get a piece of paper from basket A and half of the students will get it from basket B. (You could also do it all at once, but for some reason I think that way makes it more disorganized). After everybody has one piece of paper, you are going to explain that after the sign, they will mix and each student will try to find their pair in the other team. Once they did, they are going to introduce themselves and exchange basic information (You can provide basic questions on the board, as a guide). Little kids and groups with a very elementary level can skip this step. As a wrap up for the class, and depending on the number of students you can have each pair come to the front and have each student introduce his/her classmate, or select two or three pairs at random and ask them to do the same.
As I mentioned before, there're thousands of ways to modify this activity to suit your needs. So find your way, and try it too!


Enjoy! XOXO