Getting-to-Know-You Activities: The First Week and Beyond

The desks are arranged, favorite books are displayed, math manipulatives are sorted, and lesson plans are being written. It’s time to start building the classroom community. As I write my lesson plans, I include getting-to-know-you activities. These activities provide opportunities when it comes to learning students to have interaction positively with one another. The youngsters are desperate to make friends that are new read about the classroom environment, and turn element of a school family. In the end, the classroom can be a house out of the house for the next ten months.

When a classroom functions as a grouped community, children feel safe and accepted. They interact respectfully and responsibly with one another. Building this learning community is fostered through structured routines, consistent schedules, class meetings, shared experiences, and flexible groupings. All of these things take some time. However, it really is time well spent. Here are a few getting-to-know-you activities to advertise friendship and also to begin building a positive classroom community.

Exactly About Me Bags

From the first day of school, I share my “All About Me” bag. I fill the bag with 4 to 6 items that are special tell about me. As an example, i might include a special bookmark to share my passion for reading or a small dog statue to fairly share my children pet. After sharing my bag, I ask the learning students to create an All About Me bag to take home and fill. The students take the bag house with a note requesting 4 to 6 special things that tells us about him or her. Students bring the bags back into school and share these with the >All About Me pattern I used to create the bag. This template is from the Scholastic Resource 30 Instant Collaborative Classroom Banners by Deborah Schecter.

All About Me Books

My students enjoy creating “A Book About Me”. I prefer to utilize a template that is formatted the book, you could generate a list of topics and give students blank paper for book making. Night i learn a lot about my students by reading their books and the families enjoy reading the books at back-to-school. If time is limited, try an All About Me poster. While browsing Scholastic’s Printables, I came across the “I Am Special” mobile activity. This project may be exactly what you are looking for to brighten your room if your school’s fire code permits hanging items from the classroom ceiling. I recommend recruiting a few parent volunteers to help with assembling this project.

Student Interest Inventories

Scholastic’s Getting-to-Know-You Interest Inventories and Mingo game are excellent ways for students to get to know one another while providing movement within the classroom. As a group, review the vocabulary in the sheet and demonstrate how exactly to play. To play, students circulate inside the classroom to interview their classmates. Don’t forget to model your expectations for pairing up with a partner prior to handing out this activity. When a student finds a classmate that matches the given clue, the classmate signs his / her name. The students really enjoy these activities and also you might have to watch the clock to stay inside the scheduled time. A Friend” version of this idea with first-grade pay someone to write my paper students, I use a simpler“Find.

Self-Portraits

Have students draw and color self-portraits in the first day of school. These self-portraits make great displays for back-to-school night and keepsakes that are perfect pull out at the conclusion of the season. Inspired by a concept from the Into that is get it guide, this activity could be further enhanced by having students write an “I Am” poem. Each line of the list poem starts because of the phrase, “I am”. Students brainstorm descriptive phrases about themselves to write their poems. Younger students could brainstorm a listing of descriptors as a combined group and copy their ideas onto sentence strips to create a class poem.

Dream Clouds

Here’s a idea that is goal-setting Crayola. Students design dream clouds to reflect their goals when it comes to school year. Students use a cloud cutout and complete this sentence: “My dream is …”. Students form small groups to fairly share their dreams. Follow-up discussions with all the class or individual students focus about how to reach these goals. This notion could be used to create individual and class goals for each period that is grading.

A classroom community is always a work in progress and shaped by dozens of enter. It can take effort and time to construct relationships with and among students. Icebreaker activities allow students to feel at ease into the classroom and support interactions that are positive. Do you have a favorite getting-to-know-you activity to fairly share?