M&M’s

Pass around a bag of M&M's. Tell the participants to take as many as they want. Once everyone has M&M's, tell them that for each M&M they took they have to say one thing about themselves. For instance, if a person took 10 M&M's, they would have to say 10 things about themselves.

Meet 'n Greet

Objective: get acquainted - help discover common backgrounds and interests.

Procedure: At the beginning of a meeting or class, ask people to introduce themselves to as many others as they possibly can in two minutes' time. After those 2 minutes tell them to get into groups of three people. Tell them that their assignment for the next two minutes is to find at least three distinctive things that the three of them have in common. The only rule is that the three things cannot be job related (i.e. they work for the same organization.) Ask them to identify the three things as quickly as possible and to shout out loudly when they've done so. Provide a token prize for the first team to complete the task. Some examples of areas of commonality could be:

all are from the same home state
all have an older brother
all drive a SUV
all have degrees in the same field, etc.

After most have completed their assignments, call on a few groups to tell their areas of commonality.

Discussion questions:

1. How did some of you complete the task so quickly?
2. Did some of you have difficulty finding common backgrounds or interests?
3. Did anyone discover some startling or surprising information about the others (all are twins.)

Approximate Time needed: 10-15 minutes.