Beginning (ice-breaks, warm-ups)

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1.1. The ways of beginning (ice-breaks, warm-ups) in FLT
Each session I use a warmer, the one noticed my learners like is that of guessing information about me, I write dates and inform them that these dates are some past events in my life, and they start guessing what was it, I move to the next when they find the right answer. Kids want to get some of their teacher's mysterious life. I often use such ice-breakers which cause my students to have a talk with me,e.g. When I was going to school I saw smth green in front of me... they try to guess if it was alive , big or small, flying or running,etc...
Getting student to talk on a particular topic give them the opportunity to share their ideas with the whole class while developing their confidence to speak. It might be a single sentence by an individual or a list of ideas produced by a group. Our teachers Evita, Escobar, Botagoz, Halia and Lulyy are big fans on this category of warm-ups. 
I project the color code. For example: red means something funny, green favorite movie, yellow favorite tv show, etc. They take a random skittle, introduce themselves and have to say one fact according to the previous code. It's fun.
Evita Couto
My favourite ice breaker is definitely "My mother said" where students are sitting in a row and the Mother who's the teacher gives an advice to her son/daughter next to her and that student should whisper the advice to the next classmate and so on, therefore the student at the end of the line will shout the advice and it's always a crazy one because they always twist what they listen. Thanks and I hope you have fun with your students.
Escobar Jess
My favorite ice breaker is when students draw something that reflects their personality, and then describe the picture explaining their associations. For example, students draw a ball, and the sun. Then they describe the picture saying that they drew the ball because they like to play football and they drew the sun because their favorite season is summer.
Botagoz Abdrakhmanova
If I have no enough time to find some interesting activity I use "A quick picture". I choose a picture, show it quickly to the students and they have to describe it. Sometimes I ask questions to encourage them. When there are no other ideas, I show them the picture and we compare their answers with the real picture.
Halia Fedoruk
My favorite ice breaker is asking students to say something about themselves, and asking the next student to repeat what the others have said. They have to listen carefully, and they learn something about each other!
Lulyy Bolaños
Another common type of ice-breakers and warm-ups will be games based on vocabulary, grammar or general knowledge.
My favourite warmer as a student was playing hot seat game. This game we can play with the group. Especially in two groups. And we choose one of the student From each group and they sit on the chairs opposite side from the blackboard and the teacher write one of the vocab concerning with the subject. And then the rest students giving hint which is written on the blackboard to their group participant. Participants listen the hint and tell the right answer. This game is very exciting and fun for me.
Izzaa Izzaa
I forgot the name of the game, but all my students loved it and it helped them in their writing. Last time, I prepared 3 jars with different content. 1st jar: SUBJECT - name of person, animal. 2nd Jar: VERB - sees, loves etc... 3rd Jar: OBJECT - a cat, a moon, a sun ...etc. Let the children shake the jar until 1 lot is falling or just let them take 1 lot from each jar. Sometimes, I asked them to rearrange and pasted it on a paper, or asked them to rewrite all the words based on the correct sentence.
Pam Sam Tam
As a teacher, I give my children one minute to think and ask them to tell words that they Know confined to a topic. For ex. I tell them water and ask my children to think for a minute. After that I give one minute to tell words related to water. They are not disturbed till one minute is over. They just generate words. Then I go into my lesson The topic gets changed and after some days I make them construct sentences using the words I say. The sentences have to be made immediately. I don't concentrate in anything here but just the fluency.
Sathish Kumar
I ask a quiz on general knowledge but in each question I use the passive voice (which mineral was discovered by Marie Curie? And then the alternatives. Finally I ask them to analize the questions and find that the passive.
Williams Gamarra
Some warm-ups just don’t do the ‘warming-up’ but rocks the entire class. These highly action-oriented games are real energy boosters.
I prefer to begin my class with a song, and make my students to sing and do after me : open , shut them;open , shut them; give a little clap clap clap; Open, shut them ; open shut them ; put them in your lap lap lap Then I will start my lesson while I have caught their attention and made them sit well.
王鳳丹
My favourite ice breaker is a game called "fruit cocktail." I assign each child a fruit name, when I call out a fruit all the students that have that same fruit have to stand up and switch places, and when I say "fruit cocktail" everybody has to stand up and switch places. the last person in switching her/his place loses and has to do a challenge, for example sing a song in English since our mother tongue is Spanish. This helps students practice the language in a fun way.
Ulises Mendoza Nava
Do what I said not what I do with parts of the body. Kids love it. We begin slow and then fast. I say touch your nose but I touch my mouth, they got confused because they do the same thing I am doing but it was what I say not what I do. It works concentration and they practice vocabulary.
Paula Arboleda
From warmers I really love the lead in "multiples of 3"; in which students start counting from one student to the last one of the class. on second step we repeat the counting but this time substituting all multiples ef 3 (3, 6, 9, 12 etc) by a clap e.g. 1, 2 clap, 4, 5, clap, 7. Next step, we substitute the clappibg by a verb (adjective, adverb or anything we want to reinforce), 1,2, run 4,5, drink 7...
In this article, we write about warm-up games and ice breakers for remote meetings, workshops, training and coaching. We highlight our most favourite ice breaker games and explain to you how to perform them on an online whiteboard.
After reading, you will know how to play remote icebreaker games with your team. 

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  Why warm-ups and ice breakers are so important?
  
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  What are warm-up and ice breaker games?
  
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  How to do ice breaker games with an online whiteboard?
  
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  7 ice breaker games for an online whiteboard
  
  
  
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    Guess where I come from
    
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    Find 10 things in common
    
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    Special skills
    
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    Pictures from the past 
    
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    Two truths and a lie 
    
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    Three wishes 
    
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  The most popular ice breaker questions
  
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  How to do an ice breaker game with a big group?
  

Why warm-ups and ice breaker games are so important?  
Here are the three main reasons why warm-ups and ice breaker games should be done before a meeting, workshop, training or coaching:

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  Engagement: Warm-ups and especially ice breakers before longer meetings or workshops help people to get into the right mood and promote concentration. 
  
  
  
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  Trust: For a stronger bond in your team, it is beneficial if the team members get to know each other before the meeting. This improves communication and trust in the team. 
  
  
  
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  Productivity: Using virtual warm-ups creates a more open and trusted environment for more efficient, creative and productive work results. 
  

Online-Whiteboards like Collaboard support these activities when done online. 
A warm-up game is a game that prepares you for an meeting, a workshop, a training or an event. It is a short practice or example of what the activity will involve. 
In the time of the pandemic, effective and enjoyable remote collaboration is important. Warm-ups are especially helpful for virtual interactions that cannot physically interact with each other. They bring a personal touch to online meetings.
You likely know the problem: You are in a workshop or long meeting with people you do not know. To achieve the goals, everybody should work together smoothly.
Physical separation of people not only slows down many work processes but also the methods of team building.
That’s what the ice breaker games are made for! 
Every collaboration is much more effective once "the ice is broken". This kind of warm-up games is not only a successful start for team building but also create a positive atmosphere in every meeting, workshop, training or similar activities. 
How to do ice breaker games with an online whiteboard? 
With an online whiteboard, you can adapt many different ice breaker games to the digital world.
Using an online whiteboard helps you to visualize the games and to make the collaboration funnier and more efficient. 
Below you will find some examples of the ice breaker games and ideas on how to use an online whiteboard like Collaboard to perform them in your remote meetings.
7 ice breaker games for an online whiteboard
Guess where I come from 
This game is about finding out where all the participants come from. To prepare add a map to the whiteboard. Now everybody should take a picture of himself or upload a photo. Afterwards people should guess from which country, region or city people are coming from. As soon as you found out from where a persons is from, draw on the whiteboard a line to the destination or move the picture of this person onto the map. Below you see an idea of how we used the "Guess where I come from" ice breaker exercise in our last meeting with Collaboard.The Ice breaker game is useful for bigger companies and workshops, where the people meet the first time. To encourage people to get to know each other better, you can organize a virtual meeting. Divide the audience into separate groups. Make sure close colleagues and friends are not in the same group. Ask the groups to find 8-10 things that they all have in common and to put the pictures of these commonalities on the online whiteboard. You may find that some participants for example have been to Budapest or many of the group members like the same food or use the same digital tools. Before starting this ice breaker game, you should prepare an empty canvas with sections. Each participant will add the corresponding answers in the sections.
Now you start asking questions about special skills like: