Snowball Fight

General Steps

Gather paper (even better if it’s from your recycle bin, so long as one side is blank) then follow these steps. Have students:

  1. Write one sentence or question—the content depends upon the context—on a piece of paper.

  2. Ball up their paper.

  3. Throw their "snowballs."

  4. Pick up someone else's snowball and read the sentence aloud or answer the question.

Using the Activity as a Mixer

If you use the paper snowball fight to help students become acquainted, give them one piece of paper each and ask them to write a fact about themselves, or an answer to a question that you pose. You also could use sentence stems with younger students, or to keep students on a single topic.

Questions could also be pre-written to be answered by the reader, for example, "Do you have pets?" If your students are of appropriate age, you could encourage them to write the questions as well. Have them crumple the paper into a snowball.

Divide the group into two sides and let the snowball fight begin! (It’s also fun to allow students to pelt you with the paper balls. Do so with caution.)

For Academic Review

To use the icebreaker to review content of a previous lesson or for test preparation, ask students to write a fact or question regarding the topic you want to review. Provide each student with several pieces of paper so there is abundant "snow." If you want to ensure that students cover certain issues, add some snowballs of your own.

Use this icebreaker in a wide range of contexts and for many different purposes. For example:

  • Write review facts on snowballs and have students read them aloud, such as, "Kate DiCamillo is the author of The Tiger Rising "

  • Write review questions on snowballs and have students answer them, for example, "Who wrote The Tiger Rising?' "

  • Write conceptual questions for students to answer, such as, "What is the significance of the suitcase in The Tiger Rising?"

When the snowball fight is over, each student will pick up a snowball and answer the question in it. If your room can accommodate this, have students remain standing during this exercise since they’ll be picking up snowballs throughout the activity. Moving around also helps people retain learning, and it’s a great way to energize a classroom.

Post-Activity Debrief

To debrief an academic review; ask questions such as:

  • Were all the topics covered?

  • Which questions were the hardest to answer?

  • Were there any that were too easy? Why is that?

  • Does everybody have a thorough understanding of the subject?

If you've reviewed a lesson on the book, The Tiger Rising for example, you might ask students who the author of the book was, who were the main characters, what was their role in the story, and how students themselves felt about the book.

To debrief a mixer or other getting acquainted activities, ask questions such as:

  • Did you hear anything that surprised you?

  • Did you notice anything that you had in common with your classmates?

  • How did it feel to read someone else’s aloud?