Game of Cards Icebreaker for Youth Ministry

About Game of Cards Icebreaker

This is a large group icebreaker which is played indoors. The idea is to get people to mix and mingle and get to know each other better. All you need is a deck of cards.

This is a great way for members of your youth group and core team to get to know each other.

How to Play Game of Cards Icebreaker

Materials

• deck of cards (If your group is smaller, just use face cards or some other subset of the deck.)

Instructions

1. Shuffle the deck of cards and give each person a card.
2. Call out a card grouping, poker hand style – like “Four of a kind” or “flush” or “straight flush”. Or make up your own.
3. The people in that grouping come together. For example if you use “Four of a kind” then all of the jacks would be one group, all of the queens would be another group, etc. Members of the group should hold their cards up so others who belong in the group can see them and join them.
4. Once in their smaller groups, each member should share some facts about themselves. For example:
   • Name
   • School and grade
   • Fun fact (make a theme for each round if you want – like favorite movie character or what superpower would you like to have)
5. Continue with as many rounds as you have time for. Try to vary the poker hands so the youth have a chance to interact with a variety of people.

Notes

It might be helpful to have some poker cheat sheets on hand for those who don’t know the different hands. Or they can just help each other out. 🙂

Printable Copy

Related Ideas