Forced Choice Icebreaker

Sarah Maurer & Katie Wich

ED 561 – Child Development

Ice Breaker

July 20^th, 2011

Forced Choice

We chose this an activity that doesn’t put kids on the spot but still allows children to get to know each other. The answers are already chosen for the students so they don’t have to worry about coming up with an answer, and the scenarios are outrageous and therefore a right or wrong answer can’t really be perceived. The teacher should prepare ten outrageous hypothetical situations. You could make it specific to a unit that your working on such as “under the water” questions or you could make the hypothetical situations completely random.

Tell students that we are going to do an exercise where they choose one situation or the other. Let students know that once they choose which situation they prefer they will move to that side of the room.

Divide the room in half.

Say the hypothetical situations, “Would you rather have a bucket stuck on your foot for a year or a bottle stuck on each one of your fingers for a year.”

Give students time to get to the side of the room that they prefer.

Have students share why or how they made their choice. “Just because,” is an acceptable answer.

Some examples that we used:

1. “Would you rather be invisible or have x-ray vision?”

2. “Would you rather live on the ocean floor or on the moon?

3. “Would you rather be stranded in the desert or in Antarctica?”

4. “Would you rather time travel back in time or into the future?”

5. “Would you rather watch a movie or read a book?”

6. “Would you rather be an alien on earth or a human on another planet?”

7. “Would you rather run as fast as a cheetah or fly?”

8. “If you could only eat one thing for a year would you rather eat pizza or macaroni and cheese?”

9. “Would you rather ride on the back of polar bear or in the pouch of a kangaroo?”

10. “Would you rather have blue skin or rainbow hair?”

Have students ask their own questions!

*After we debriefed this activity some ideas came up. First, some people found this activity a little anxiety producing because they were forced to make a choice on the spot, so keep that in mind if you choose to do this with children (however, the point was made that in life you have to make choices and being comfortable making choices is a skill all children need to learn, food for thought). Secondly, when participants talk about why they made their choice there was some “discrediting” of the other choice. Set clear ground rules before the activity so that participants know not to do this (an idea to have participants explain the benefits of the situation they didn’t choose was also brought up which could be a cool experience.) Lastly, as a variation you could use this activity with serious questions if working with adults on a serious topic.

We personally had a great time with this activity and we hope you did too!