Bottle Flip: A Fun First Week Icebreaker for Middle School ELA
This is the last day of the building relationships series, and I saved my most popular resource for the finale.
This one started with a summer of watching entirely too much Dude Perfect with my family.
If you know, you know.
Hours of trick shots, bottle flips, and that ridiculous positive energy they bring to everything they do. Somewhere around the millionth bottle flip video, I thought, my students would LOVE this. There has to be a way to turn this into a game.
So the Bottle Flip Ice Breaker was born.
It's a fast paced partner game where students flip water bottles, Dude Perfect style, while asking each other fun, get to know you questions.
How To Play Bottle Flip
Step One: Pair Up Your Students
Ideally, break them out of their friend groups so they're talking to someone new.
I always tell my students, I'm not asking you to become best friends with this person, or marry them, just to do a 10 minute activity together.
Step Two: Hand Out Supplies
Since I run this activity on day three, I tell students ahead of time they'll need a water bottle.
If someone forgets or doesn't have one, I let them borrow from my own collection.
As long as one person in the pair has a bottle, they're good to go.
Give each pair a set of discussion question cards and a scorecard.
I keep my question cards laminated and cut apart, with one full set of 60 stored in a Gladware container for each partner group. That way everything's ready to grab and reusable year after year.
Step Three: Explain the Instructions
The oldest student flips first.
✅ Bottle lands upright? The flipper automatically earns two points, and it's the other student's turn.
❌ Bottle doesn't land upright? The flipper still has a shot at a point. They draw a random Get to Know You question card and answer it.
If they answer the question, they earn a point.
If they say "I don't know," the other student gets the point instead.
This encourages students to actually answer the questions instead of shrugging them off.
Now it's player two's turn to flip.
Tips for Success
✅ Keep the instructions displayed while students are playing.
✅ Have small prizes ready for the winners. Jolly Ranchers are always a hit.
✅ Let pairs go back and forth for about 10 minutes. If time allows, have them switch partners.
✅ Set the expectation that students can only flip the bottle on their turn. They have to wait for their partner to answer the question before touching the bottle.
✅ Take up all bottles at the end, or have students put them away, so they're not tempted to bottle flip during another part of your lesson.
✅ If time allows, have students turn one of their answers into a quick journal entry afterward.
Why Teachers Love It
Don't just take my word for it. This resource has sold over 5,500 times on TpT, it's one of my most watched TikTok videos, and here's what teachers are saying about Bottle Flip:
Want to run this in your own classroom?
You can absolutely build it yourself! Type out the instructions, create and print your own questions, and you're off.
Or if you'd rather skip the prep and get straight to the fun part, I've already done it for you. The slides, scorecard, and a full set of 60 question cards, ready to print and go. You can find it in two places.
Find Bottle Flip on TpT
This is perfect if you are just looking for one high energy and engaging icebreaker!
Download it from ELA Unlimited
Or get Bottle Flip (and pretty much everything else you'll need for the first nine weeks) inside ELA Unlimited.
✅ Weekly plans
✅ Engaging Bell Ringers
✅ Standards Based Mini Lessons
✅ Articles of the Month
✅ This collage activity plus other relationship building back to school resources.
First Week Plan Freebie
This activity is part of my full First Week Plan for Middle School ELA, and you can grab it for free.
Fill out the form below, and I'll send you a copy so you can walk into the first week with a plan already in place.
