Icebreaker activities and games to welcome everyone into Scouts
Going to your first Scouts meeting, or even coming back after the summer holidays, might feel a little bit daunting.
There are lots of new faces and brilliant volunteers to meet. Here are a few icebreakers and team building activities to help volunteers and young people get to know each other better.
Whether a young Squirrel’s feeling shy in their first meeting, an excited Cub wants to make some new friends, or a fantastic volunteer's trying to learn lots of names, these games and activities will help you all settle back into Scouts.
Name games
To begin, throw a ball around the circle. When someone catches the ball, they say their name and throw the ball to another person. Keep playing until everyone’s had a turn.
To make it harder, you could add in another ball. You could also ask people to shout someone else’s name before throwing the ball to that person to catch.
Once you’re confident in each other’s names, try these quick games:
- Have a game of Guess Who
- Play a game of Splat, shouting people's names instead of 'Splat!'
- Get familiar with voices in Skippyroo Kangaroo
- Work out who’s missing in Watch out, fox is about
Teamwork
Are you wanting to try some teamwork building activities to help your Scouts get to know each other?
- Try to get a whole team through a piece of paper
- Roll the ball through the pipes to the bucket in team pipe dream
- Take on inventive tasks together in Taskmaster
- Play Shark infested custard
- Take on a space-themed teamwork game of Mission: Lightyear
- See if people can get the answer in 20 questions
- Crack a life-sized puzzle in gridlocked people
- Practice teamwork in an adventurous activity (you may need a permit!)
Finding friends
Making friends can be harder for some young people, so introduce some talking points and share what you all have in common to get to know each other.
- Play an active game of When the Wind Blows
- Share fun facts in two truths, one lie
- Go on a friend finding mission to get to know people better
- Play buddy bingo and find your perfect match
All about Scouts
It might not just be friends you need introducing to. Young people might need a bit longer to learn all about the brilliant world of Scouts, too.
Squirrels
- Welcome our youngest section to Squirrel Scouts
- Help Squirrels find out what Scouts is all about
Beavers
- Discover how to Open a Beaver meeting
- Learn what it means to be a Beaver with Busy as a Beaver
Cubs
- Get ready and open a Cub Meeting
- Learn the Grand Howl
- Practice Closing the Cub meeting
Scouts
- Learn how open a Scout meeting
- Find out how to close a Scouts meeting
All Sections
- Discover the different badges and awards you can earn with this brilliant bingo game
- Practice tying your neckers in Super scarves
Sharing stories
Stories can help relax us, give us a chance to learn new things and make us laugh. They’re also a great way for your group to help to get to know each other.
- Why not share your photos to learn more about each other in Every picture tells a story?
- Work as a team to create one story together in Circle storytelling
- Share your favourite story with your friends in My favourite story
Before reading the stories, you could even share your favourite hot drink – or make every Scouts favourite treat, s’mores!