Icebreakers & Team-Building Grades K–2
The Name Chain Game
A classic memory-and-names circle game with a movement gesture attached to every name.
10 min 8–30 students
Download printable kit (PDF)
What you need
- None
Setup
Sit or stand in a circle where everyone can see everyone else.
How to run it
- The first student says their name and does a simple gesture (a clap, a wave, a hop).
- The whole circle repeats the name and copies the gesture together.
- The next student repeats every name-and-gesture said so far, in order, then adds their own.
- Keep going around the circle — if the class is large, restart the chain every 8–10 names instead of trying to remember the whole class at once.
Variations
- Drop the memory-chain part for a very young class and just do "name + gesture, everyone copies" around the circle once.
- Add a favorite-animal-sound version later in the year once names are memorized.