Ice Breakers for High School Students: 45 Interactive Questions + Activities

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It’s the first day of school, and your high school class is quiet. Too quiet. How do you get students interacting when they’re feeling shy, all while keeping your class management under control?

Use these ice breakers for high school students on the first day of class or when starting a new semester. Perfect for class members working on social skills or for those too-silent periods, these questions, activities, and getting-to-know-you resources are just what you need to warm things up in class.

Interesting Ice Breaker Questions for the First Day of School

High schoolers have probably moved past questions like “What’s your favorite color?” Help them introduce themselves with more engaging ice breaker activities for high school students that range from funny to fascinating. 

Try these questions for a change of pace: 

• What’s your go-to app when you open your phone?
• What is your favorite thing about your backpack?
• Describe your school day in a five-word story.
• What would be your DJ name?
• Tell the best joke you know.
• What do you order at your favorite restaurant?
• What emoji, GIF, or meme describes you best?
• What’s your favorite natural sound?
• If you had to spend 24 hours with a family member, who would you choose?
•  Would you prefer a chicken-sized horse or a horse-sized chicken?
•  Which sport do you think should get more airtime on TV?
•  What animal would you definitely not want to be?
•  Where is your favorite seat in any class?
•  If you had to teach a class, what would the class be called?
•  What hobby or activity have you quit in the past?

Creative Conversation Starters and Discussion Topics

Take your topics past getting-to-know-you activities for high school students and into meaningful conversations. These ice breakers and brain breaks for high school may build friendships that last all semester, all year, or even beyond high school itself.

• When do you send a text versus calling someone on the phone?
• Do you like making lists, or are you a spontaneous person?
• What was middle school like for you? Do you hope high school is the same or different?
• If you could change one thing about last year, what would you change?
• What is the furthest you’ve ever been away from home?
• Would you describe yourself as laid back or anxious?
• Where would you like to be in five years? What about ten years?
• If you had to add another class to your schedule, what would you add?
• How can you tell if a teacher is going to be nice or not?
• What do you hope your friends think about you?

Team-Building High School Icebreaker Activities

What better way to break the ice than to have students work together as a team? Try out these ice breakers for high school students to get kids out of their seats and their comfort zones.

• Guess That Song: Student groups work together to guess a song you play within the first few seconds.
• Guided Description: A volunteer stands at the board and tries to copy another student’s drawing based only on the class’s verbal instructions.
• Classroom Playlist: Have students work together to create a class-appropriate playlist that you can play all year long.
• Comic Strip: Hand out blank comic strip pages to groups and have them storyboard a scene from a movie or book they all know.
• Lines and Blobs: Ask students to put themselves in a line or group (blob) based on any criteria they choose, such as birthday order in the year, height, shoe size, etc.
• Collaborative Story: Have the class tell a story with each student adding one word at a time.
• Student Survivor: Encourage small groups to create their own desert island survival plan, including a flag, a supplies list, and jobs for each member.
• Copy me: The first student performs a sound or move. The next student copies them, then adds their own. The activity continues until the last student has a chance to do it, then the first student has to go through the line.
• Group Clap: A circle of students tries to match one student’s clap rhythm and follow as the student changes the beat.
• Beat the Teacher: Compete against the whole class in a trivia contest with topics like pop culture, movies, or your specific subject matter.

Competitive Ice Breaker Games for High Schoolers

Ready for a little fun? Show your new learners that class won’t be all hard work with fun ice breaker activities for high school students to play. Try each one in pairs, groups, or as a whole class to build quick camaraderie!

• Name That Name: Give students a few minutes to mingle and meet as many people as they can. Then ask for volunteers to name the most people.
• Common Traits: Have groups race each other to find at least three things that they all share in common.
• Adjective Attack: Encourage groups to come up with the most adjectives to describe a given item in the classroom.
• Backpack Scavenger Hunt: Call out items that students might have in their backpacks (notebooks, pencils, etc.). The first student who has the most items wins!
• Unpopular Opinion: Ask students to present their most unpopular opinions. If someone agrees with them, it’s their turn to come up with an unpopular opinion.
• My Other Half: Hand out cards with famous duos (such as Romeo and Juliet, ketchup and mustard, or Batman and Robin) and have students find the student with the other half of their pair.
• Trivia Train: Write a topic on the board (such as weather or animals) and have each student name a fact they know about it. The next student must name a different fact without repeating one from before. Speed up the pace for a challenge!
• First Day Bingo: Give students empty Bingo cards and let them add moments that they have experienced on the first day of school. Call out common events (such as getting lost, forgetting your jacket, or mixing up classes) and see who scores a Bingo first.
• Snowball Fight: After students write an interesting fact about themselves on a piece of paper, they crumple up the paper and have an in-class “snowball fight.” At the end, each student chooses one paper and tries to find the owner.
• Teacher’s Desk: Let class members view the items on your desk for one minute, then send them back to their seats and remove one item. See who can name the missing item.

Ice Breaker Resources for any High School Class

Implement even more ice breakers for high school students with these low-prep, high-quality resources. Aligned to CCSS for writing, speaking, listening, and more, they work in any class period where students could use a little nudge to start socializing. Use them for the first day of school or as questions of the day for high school students.

Start the school year with team-building activities

Turn individual students into fast friends when you put them on the same team. From competitive activities for the first week of school to cooperative projects in the middle of the year, team-building activities for high school students are great for building community.

Ice Breakers for the First Day of School 
By Teaching from A-Z
Grades: 5th-12th

Set the tone in your class right away with three ice breaker activities for students to get to know each other. This resource includes everything you need to complete these engaging activities, including a PowerPoint file for a customizable edition of Find Someone Who.

Conversation Starters Ice Breaker Activities for Team Building & Morning Meeting 
By Informed Decisions
Grades: 6th-12th
Subjects: Family Consumer Sciences, School Counseling
Standards: CCSS W.7.1, 8.1, 9-10.1, SL.7.1, CCRA.R.1, 2, 4, L.1, 3, 4, 5, 6

Need conversation starters for the first week of school or transitions from school vacations? Use 200 conversation starter cards to get the discussion going. An activity reflection worksheet, activity directions, and facilitator tips keep the lesson moving smoothly.

Back-to-School Ice Breaker & Getting-to-Know-You Activities for High School 
By Jenn Liu — Engaging to Empower
Grades: 9th-12th
Subjects: English Language Arts, All Subjects
Standards: CCSS CCRA.SL.1, SL.4, SL.5, SL.6

This CCSS-aligned ice breaker resource includes five getting-to-know-you activities that high schoolers will love. From modern activities like Hashtagit and My Summer Playlist to ice breaker classics like Two Truths and a Lie, the resource makes students feel like they’ve known each other for longer than one class period.

High School Ice Breakers for Specific Classes

Want to get the learning started right away? Integrate your subject matter into ice breakers for high school students to demonstrate their understanding and build classroom rapport from the first day.

Icebreakers + math = a good school year

Get numbers on the table right away with ice breakers for math class. High schoolers can show what they know about math and introduce themselves with all-inclusive getting-to-know-you activities.

First Day of School Algebra 2 Find Someone Who Ice Breaker
By Strength in Numbers
Grades: 9th-12th
Subjects: Algebra 2, Math

Put a math-related twist on the traditional Find Someone Who ice breaker on the first day of school. This creative Algebra 2 resource encourages high schoolers to find someone who shares personal traits with them and who can solve math problems involving factoring, adding expressions, slope, exponents, and more.

Experiment with icebreakers in science class

It’s never too soon to be curious in science class! Break through the typical ice breaker activities and opt for a first-day experiment that introduces students to lab safety, the scientific method, and their new lab partners.

Chemistry Chat First Day of School Ice Breaker Lab Station Activity
By Amy Brown Science
Grades: 8th-11th
Subjects: Chemistry, Physical Science

Welcome young scientists to your chemistry class with a resource that takes them all the way around the lab. Ten chemistry chat lab station instruction cards introduce different concepts, including the periodic table, metals and nonmetals, a metric scavenger hunt, and more. The resource comes with a comprehensive materials list to stock up stations before students arrive.

Say “welcome” in any language with LOE icebreaker games

Whether you’re saying bienvenue in French class or welcoming Spanish students with bienvenidos, you’ll want to break the ice in their new language to get the learning started. Games, team activities, and getting-to-know-you questions turn your quiet classroom into lively conversations.

Bavardons! An ice breaker game for novice (mid to high) French students
By Mme B’s French Classroom
Grades: 8th-12th
Subjects: French

Have your French students forgotten all the French they learned last year? Refresh their memories with a game for intermediate and advanced French students. Students work together in small groups to finish board games in French, letting them practice straightforward phrases in a comfortable setting.

Spanish Back to School Ice Breaker This or That | Beginning of Year Activity
By MaestraInTheMiddle
Grades: 6th-9th
Subjects: Spanish, World Languages

¿Qué te gusta más? Spanish students answer this question on the first day of class while deciding which activities or foods they prefer. The resource comes with 15 questions for students to answer independently or with classmates, writing extension activities, and image prompts.

Get to know your class better than ever with TPT

Whether you’re hosting lab introductions, getting-to-know-you games, or would-you-rather questions for high school students, the right ice breakers can be instrumental in starting the year or a new class off right. Try out these ice breakers for high school students, or even more high school ice breakers from TPT, any time during the year to build classroom community and inspire teenage teamwork!