Sit or Stand Getting to Know You

In past years, I’ve had kids walk around the room and do surveys at the beginning of the year to get to know each other and start building a sense of classroom community. We would also practice turn & talk with getting-to-know-you topics. But those types of activities may not be allowed right now, so a good option is Sit or Stand.

Basically you just call out something like, “Sit down if you prefer chocolate milk.  Stand up if you prefer white milk.”  Then take a minute to have the students look around, see who answered the same way, and talk a little bit about their choices.

3 things about this summer

I will read out the items and kids will raise their hand if they did that particular thing.  Then discussion ensues

1/True False Quiz

• On the first day of school I give my new students a T/F quiz all about me. I have silly things in there like “I like to hang upside-down from trees” “I love Harry Potter books” and “My favorite color is purple.” The children take the quiz and then we go over the answers. I usually give a small prize to whoever gets the most correct. Then it is their turn to write a T/F quiz for me about them. If there is time, I will try to answer the quizzes out loud so that everyone gets to know everyone a bit. I tell them I want them to pay attention to punctuation and do the best they can on spelling as well, without putting too much pressure on them about it. This give me a change to preview their skill level as well as get to know them.
  
  
  
  
  
  

All About Me Posters

On the first day of school, I have my students draw and color their name on a large sheet of paper. They add things about themselves, including their birthdays and their favorite things to do. The posters are then displayed on the wall in the classroom.  

Turning over a new Leaf

On the first day of school students see their names written on a leaf that is hanging from a tree in our reading center. The quote, “Turning over a new leaf” is written on the board and we brainstorm ideas as to what it means. Once the children have an understanding of the quote, they then write me a letter that begins, “This year I am turning over a new leaf. Last year I…..and this year I want to….” Many students wrote about grades, and others wrote about wanting to change their behavior. Students feel better after we have discussed that they are indeed turning over a new leaf because they are starting the new year with a clean slate! 

First Day Letter

First Day Letter

On the first day of school, I have a letter ready for each child. Although the letter is the same, each is addressed with the child’s name. In the letter I introduce myself, talk about my family, my summer holidays and my hobbies. I then ask them to write back to me and fill me in on them. The students are very interested in the personal life of the teacher at this age. The letter back gives a review of the “friendly letter” format, gives me an overview of their writing ability and an insight into the child as well. 

Dear Me

 Dear Me,“Dear Me” is a letter students write to themselves on the first day of school. Inside the letter they are to discuss their feelings about starting a new school year, what they loved/hated about the previous school year, and what they expect to learn this year. The requirements can be changed. The teacher collects the letters to put them in individual envelopes. At the end of the year, the teacher passes out their letters. The students read their own letter. This can lead to other activities such as sharing their letters, seeing if their opinions changes a great deal. It is exciting to read all the letters to get to know the students, understand where they are coming from, and what they expect. At the end of the year it is exciting to observe the students react to their own letters (and share with others). Another adaptation is that I give this assignment to the 6th graders. Then I give them the letters when they graduate the 8th grade. Some students really get a kick out of reading what they wrote 3 years prior. 

card name game

have all of their names written on a playing card. While seated at the carpet,  distribute one card to each child (making sure no one has their own name). When their name is called they have to say something positive about the person on the card. This has really helped them to learn about respect and treating others how they want to be treated. It is fun and only takes about five minutes.

Class closing and opening

hand 10 scrap pieces of paper out at random. Class knows that if they get a piece of paper they have to write a comment about the class topic that day or a question they have. It may be a question a neighbor had. This gives me something to do if i wrap up early or something to start off the next class session. Check for understanding or clarification. It also allows students to ask questions anonymously as I shuffle the papers and others can grab a sheet to add to the stack.

Class pledge

 

Social Distancing greetings

Choose one!   Which would you like?

 

Category Chaos

This game can be played as individuals or in teams. Each player (or team) will need a piece of paper and a pen or pencil to write with.

Players must divide their paper into 6 columns. At the top of each column, they'll need to write the six categories that are chosen. These should be chosen by the leader in advance. We've provided some great category examples at the bottom of this game page.

To start the game, a random letter from the alphabet is chosen and a one minute timer is started. All players must fill out their page as quickly as possible by coming up with a word that starts with the designated letter for each category. Once one player has a word for all six categories, or the time is up, all players must stop writing.

The scoring phase involves each player reading out the word they came up with for each particular category. Progress through each category, one at a time. If a player comes up with a word that no one else has written down, they get a point. If another player has written down the same word, then no points are given. If no word was written down, then no points are given. Other players may challenge a word if they believe it doesn't fit the category or is made-up. A majority vote may be cast to decide after evidence is given. (This can actually be a really fun part of the game)

- Boys name
- Girls name
- Job title
- Colour
- Fruit
- Vegetable
- Country
- Animal
- Movie
- Celebrity

How To Play Logic

Materials Needed

None

This is not an active game but it is ideal for any down time such as bus rides, waiting in line, sitting by a camp fire etc. It is a brain teaser/riddle type of game.

1. Tell the group that you are taking a trip (to the moon, camping, whatever).

2. The person who is leading the game creates a reason (only known to them) as to why certain items can or cannot be brought on the trip. For example, my logic could be that only things that start with the letter C can be brought on the trip (again, don't tell the group that).

3. The person leading the game begins by saying, "I'm going to take a ____ (something that corresponds to their logic, such as a Cat.) "I'm going to take a Cat. John, what are you going to take?

3. As you go around the circle or group, each person gets a turn to ask if they can take ____. If John ask if he can take a Backpack, the answer would be no because it doesn't start with the letter C and therefore doesn't correspond to the logic (this is not told to the players until the game is over).

4. Each time someone asks if they can take an item, the leader says "yes you can take a ____ or no you can't take a _____but doesn't explain why.

5. Each time everyone has asked about one item, the leader shares a new item that he can take. This gives the players more opportunities to observe the reason or "why" behind the items.

6. The game can continue until either everyone figures it out, one person figures it out or everyone gives up, depending on how your group wants to play.

Any logic or "why" will work but here are two ideas.

A. People can only take items that begin with the first letter of their name. (Michael can take a map, Susan can take a sword, etc).

B. Someone can only take an item that begins with the letter of the last letter of the last item that was asked about. Meaning, wether someone's last item was denied or accepted, such as- If the leaders' (John) item was a book, the next item would have to begin with the letter k to be accepted. If Mark asked, "can I take a chicken?" the answer would be no. But if the next person (Luke) ask, "can I take a nail?" the answer would be yes because the last word was chicken, and it ends with an N. And the next item would need to start with an L to be accepted.

20 Fall Table Talk Questions

1. What fall food do you most look forward to?
2. Rake the leaves or jump in the leaves?
3. Pumpkin pie or apple pie?
4. What qualifies as the “perfect pumpkin?
5. Share a favorite fall memory.
6. It wouldn’t be fall without _____________.
7. What’s your favorite fall smell?
8. What’s your favorite fall activity?
9. If you could attend any football game of your choosing, what team(s) would you want to watch?
10. The thing I most dislike about fall is ____________.
11. What is your favorite pumpkin-flavored treat?
12. My favorite childhood Halloween costume was _______________.
13. In the fall I love to go to ______________________.
14. Tell us about your favorite Halloween candy or treat.
15. Share a memory from a trip to a pumpkin farm or apple orchard.
16. Fall means it’s time to get out _______________.
17. Which fall TV show are you looking forward to?
18. Share a special back-to-school memory?
19. Who was your favorite teacher and why?
20. What was your favorite subject in school?

see things from different perspectives

Which food is better: pizza or tacos?

Would you rather go on a hike or to a movie?

What skill is more valuable: creativity or logic?

Which is worse: being bored or being too busy?

Have everyone physically divide into sides—pro pizza to the right; pro taco to the left. Let all the like-minded people discuss the virtues of their position for a while, and then have a representative try to sell the other side of the room. This will give everyone a chance to see things from different perspectives. It will open everyone’s minds for a productive meeting.

Zoom

Zoom is a classic classroom cooperative game that never seems to go out of style. Simply form students into a circle and give each a unique picture of an object, animal, or whatever else suits your fancy. You begin a story that incorporates whatever happens to be on your assigned photo. The next student continues the story, incorporating their photo, and so on.

The Minefield: The Obstacle Icebreaker

Set up “obstacles” around the room. (We recommend something harmless and funny, like squeaky toys.) Now everyone takes turns navigating the obstacles while blindfolded, guided only by the shouts and direction of their teammates.

The Shoe Icebreaker

Have everyone leave one shoe by the door. Redistribute the shoes so everyone has one shoe that doesn’t belong to them. Set a timer for five minutes, and tell everyone to find the shoe’s owner and then strike up a 2-minute conversation, preferably about a subject other than shoes.

Q and A

give everyone 15 minutes to ask any questions they have, no holds barred. This icebreaker gets everyone thinking about the topic of your meeting. It might even clarify some of the issues the meeting aims to solve.

All linked up

So have you ever heard of the ice breaker game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”? You know, that game where you can connect any actor or actress with Kevin Bacon with 6 or less connections. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, take a sec and Google it. And, if you have no idea who Kevin Bacon is, well, just forget you read this paragraph and keep reading because Kevin Bacon really has nothing to do with this entire blog post, but I digress.

The idea of All Linked Up is to see if you can connect everyone in your class through common names, interests or activities.  To do this, students will need to know things about each other, so this one might be best played at the end of the week or during the second or third week of school.

To start out, make the connections anything that the students have in common.

It might be something like this:

Mary is connected to Mike, Margaret and Matthew because all of their names all start with M. Matthew is connected to Sarah because they both have 2 brothers. Sarah is connected to Kim, Jennifer and Lola because they all like the color pink. Lola is connected to Jonathan because they both like to read. And so on . . .

Once you can connect the whole class in a few different ways, you might try limiting the connections to one or two commonalities like favorite foods or members of the family. Or challenge the class to see if they can connect everyone in 10 or less links.

There’s something about knowing that you are in some way connected with your entire class that helps you feel like you are part of something bigger than yourself. You could also build a paper chain as a representation of these connections and keep it hanging in the classroom.

5 word story

 

You are going to tell a story as a class. The catch, each student may only say 5 words at a time. Before you begin, make sure that everyone knows the speaking order so that you don’t have to stop your story to figure out whose turn it is.

If you have space for students to spread out and sit in a circle around the room, this is probably the easiest option. If students are at their desks, make sure that everyone knows who they speak after.  You can also list the names of the students on the board and use that order. Just have a plan and make sure everyone knows it.

Then start the story. As you say the first 5 words of the story, hold up your hand and raise one finger for each word. Then look at the student who is next so they can continue the story. It might sound like this:

Teacher: Once upon a time a

Student 1: dog was running in a

Student 2: park. The dog was brown

Student 3: and white with a black

Student 4: spot over his left eye.

Student 5: A giant green and yellow

Student 6: lizard was chasing the dog

Student 7: through the park as it

Student 8: ran and looked around for

You can finish the story as a class or let it be the start of writing prompt. After everyone has a chance to add 5 words, challenge the students to finish the story in their writing journals.

Race to 100

This is a fun ice breaker that takes teamwork, cooperation and listening skills. Challenge the class to count to 100 as quickly as possible without two people talking at the same time. Once the game begins, they are only allowed to say the numbers from 1 to 100. If two people talk at the same time they must start over with 1. If the numbers are repeated or said out of order, the counting must start again at 1. It adds an element of competition if you time them or if you set a time limit.

This game works really well as a discussion starter for teamwork. After playing a couple of times, stop and talk about the difficulties and what could make it more successful. Then give the students 1-2 minutes of planning time allowing only one person to talk at a time during the planning time too.

After planning, let the class try the Race to 100 again. Then talk about how this attempt was the same or different from the other attempts. If it was more successful, have the class discuss the reasons why. Hopefully, these reasons lead back to planning and teamwork!

20 questions

Play a game of 20 questions (or use the number that is the same as the number of students you have so that each person can ask 1 question). Choose 1 person to pick a secret word (nouns usually work best) and have them write it down or tell the teacher. Then challenge the class to work together to figure out what the person is. This will require students to listen to each other's questions, the answers and thinking about related follow-up questions that might help to narrow down the secret word.

After everyone has asked a question, then let each student take one guess.

Quiz Time

 

Make your first pop quiz of the year about the class. Keep notes of the things you learn about your students during your ice breakers and get-to-know-you activities. Then at the end of the first week, create a pop quiz asking questions about what you learned. Your students will love being the stars of the questions!

You can make it a paper and pencil quiz or use an app like Kahoot or Google Forms to make a digital pop quiz. This is a great way to introduce a new type of digital activity that you will use during the year too!

Getting to Know You and Ice Breakers Activities for Remote Learning:

Are you looking for a fun and engaging way for students to learn about each other? I have made my Getting to Know You back to School Task Cards DIGITAL! But these aren't just task cards… They now include a to-slide Google Slides activity so students can put together an ebook all about them! It is possibly one of my favorite creations. If you still want to go the traditional task card route but don't want to play SCOOT, I have also provided Google Slides versions of each of the cards so that you can project them at the front of the class.

Getting to know you ice breakers with name tags

Social Distancing or Virtual Team Building Activities

Would you Rather

Get to know your students, their likes, dislikes, personalities and more with the classic ice breakers that is Would You Rather. Grab some Would You Rather questions from the internet and you are ready to begin. All you have to do is ask students the question and then give them a way to respond. For social distancing choose actions they can easily complete at their desk space like stand or sit. This makes for a great movement break to use throughout the first few days of school, too!

Let the students know that you are going to ask them to choose between two options. It’s okay if they like both or don’t like either, their job is to make a choice between the two. Let them know that if they like the first option best, they will stand up.  If they like the second option best, they sit in their seat.

Then ask the Would You Rather question and give the students time to respond with your chosen signals.  After each question, call on 2-3 students with each answer and have them explain why they chose their answer.

Playdoh

For this ice breaker activity, each student will need their own small container of play dough. Since students are most likely not able to share supplies, they can keep this in their desk or with their supplies to use again and again.

This is one of my absolute favorite first day of school activities. I love to have it on the students’ desks ready for them to start when they first arrive. Having an activity that they jump right into that doesn’t require them knowing anyone is a great way to ease the first day jitters.

Have students build something out of playdough that represents them or shares something about them. Here’s some examples of what could be built:

●  Your favorite animal

● Your favorite food

●  Something that shows your hobby or something you like to do

● If you were an animal, what animal would you be? Build it.

● Build something that represents your favorite TV show.

● Build something that shows what you did over the summer.

●  What you ate for breakfast.

After students build, then have a share time where students show what they built and tell how it relates to them. This activity could easily be repeated every morning during the first week of school, or longer, using a different build prompt each time.

Two Truths and a Lie

This is a fun, classic ice breaker that allows students to share some little known facts about themselves while trying to stump their classmates too. Each student will write down two true statements and one lie about themselves. Let them know that they can put these statements in any order as the goal is for the class to try to figure out which one is the lie. Although this can be done without writing it down, I have found that with elementary-aged students it is very beneficial to give students thinking time first. Otherwise, you end up with students who try to think when it is their turn and it makes the truths and lie very obvious.

After everyone is done writing down their sentences, then go around the room having students read their 3 statements. The class will then vote on which they think is the lie. After the vote, the student will reveal the lie and can explain the truths if there is time.

This game could also be spread apart over many days. After students write down their three statements, have them turn in their papers. Then as time is available, the teacher will choose a paper, have the student stand, and then the teacher will read the 3 statements. The class votes on which they think is the lie. After the vote, the student reveals the real lie and can explain the truths.

HELLO, MY NAME IS .

. .

This is a fun game to play with your students in order to help them learn the names and some fun facts about their classmates. The idea is to use this game every day for 3 – 5 days in a row or play 3 – 5 rounds on one day. All you need are some “Hello, My Name Is . . .” name tags.

Each round will build on the last round using a different theme or question.

Round 1: Your Name

Have students write their name at the bottom of the white box on the name tag. They will need space to add other words in the white space in front of their name.

Round 2: Your favorite food

Have students write the name of their favorite food right above their name.

Round 3: Your favorite color

Have students add their favorite color on the name tag right before their favorite food.

Round 4: Your favorite hobby / activity

Have students add a favorite hobby or activity right before the color.

Round 5: Add an adjective that starts with the same letter as their name

Have students write an adjective that starts with the same letter of their name before the hobby.

To play, take turns going around the room introducing yourself according to the theme or question for that round. Each introduction should start with the words “Hello, my name is . . .” After each introduction, the class responds with “Hi ________!” repeating what the student said.

Here’s a Round 1 example:

Student 1: Hello, my name is Mary.
Class: Hi, Mary.
Student 2: Hello, my name is Jonathan.
Class: Hi, Jonathan.

For Round 2 each person will add their favorite food before their name. It might sound like this:

Student 1: Hello, my name is sushi Mary.
Class: Hi, sushi Mary.
Student 2: Hello, my name is taco Jonathan.
Class: Hi, taco Jonathan.

For Round 3 each person will add their favorite color to their name like this:

Student 1: Hello, my name is green sushi Mary.
Class: Hi, green sushi Mary.
Student 2: Hello, my name is blue taco Jonathan.
Class: Hi, blue taco Jonathan.

For Round 4 it’s time to add a hobby to the mix.

Student 1: Hello, my name is singing green sushi Mary.
Class: Hi, singing green sushi Mary.
Student 2: Hello, my name is reading blue taco Jonathan.
Class: Hi, reading blue taco Jonathan.

For Round 5 each person will add an adjective that starts with the same letter as their name.

Student 1: Hello, my name is marvelous singing green sushi Mary.
Class: Hi, marvelous singing green sushi Mary.
Student 2: Hello, my name is jovial reading blue taco Jonathan.
Class: Hi, jovial reading blue taco Jonathan.

You can make this game last as many rounds as you want by simply adding or taking off themes or questions. However, it is the repetitive nature of the game, and the silly answers, that help students remember each other’s name and facts.