Icebreakers & Team-Building Grades 6–8

Common Ground Circles

Two concentric circles of students rotate and find one thing in common with a new partner every 90 seconds.

15 min 12+ students

What you need

Arrange desks or chairs (or just floor space) into two circles, one inside the other, facing each other in pairs.

Split the class in half. The inner circle faces out, the outer circle faces in, so everyone has a partner.
Give a prompt ("find one thing you both like," "find a place you’ve both been," "find a subject you both find hard"). Pairs have 90 seconds to find something in common.
Call time. The outer circle rotates one spot to the right, everyone has a new partner, and you give a new prompt.
After 5–6 rotations, ask a few volunteers to share the most surprising thing in common they found.

For a class that already knows each other, raise the difficulty: "find something in common that isn’t about school or this class."
Works just as well as a mid-semester reset as it does on day one.