What Is a Good Getting to Know You Activity for Students in Learning Support

Icebreakers Volume 12: Excellent Activities for Getting Students Warmed Upward

Are you all set for the first day of school? Or are you lot still searching for the perfect activities for that day? Included: More than a dozen new icebreakers plus links to 150 more than!

Students in some communities are back in school already. In many other locales, excited conversations fill school hallways every bit teachers set up their classrooms for the big day.

One of teacher Heather Migdon's favorite activities is to have her students at Dogwood Elementary School in Fairfax County, Virginia, write a letter of the alphabet of introduction to her. The students' messages help her get to know them and their interests. She also finds the letters to be a useful diagnostic tool. She tin come across immediately some of the language and writing skills she needs to work on as a grade and with private students.

Some other of Migdon'due south favorite showtime-day activities is to have students write a "Who Am I? riddle." "Students write four or five statements about themselves followed by the last line, the question "Who Am I?" explained Migdon. "I put the students' riddles upwardly as a bulletin board and let students approximate each person. The first person to estimate correctly gets to choose who guesses next."

Later, Migdon compiles those riddles into a volume that the students can revisit and enjoy all year long.

Migdon usually tries to share at least one read-aloud book during the opening days of school. Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes, and First Day Jitters, past Julie Danneberg, are favorites. Most essential to her, though, is More Than Annihilation Else by Marie Bradby. More than Anything Else is an excellent tool for starting a give-and-take well-nigh students' goals for the school year, said Migdon. "The biographical story of Booker T. Washington'south youth," she explained, "uses beautiful language and illustrations to show how he learned to read as a young male child. Later on reading the book, we talk about his goals and how his decision to accomplish them made them a reality."

Learning Styles and Baseball Cards

Pamela Tempest, a teacher at Hudson (Ohio) Centre School was another correspondent to the Middle Web listserv word. During the opening days of school, Tempest provides each pupil in her classes with a file folder to decorate and set up for use as a work portfolio. "We too talk near learning styles and multiple intelligences," said Tempest. "I accept students have a multiple intelligence survey. Then I have them notation right on their folders what their learning preferences are and what their learning strengths are." Those notes serve equally a reminder to the students and their instructor throughout the year. For students, those notes remind them in moments of frustration that they practise take learning strengths.

Storm has many icebreaker activities that she uses in the opening calendar week. One of her favorites is a language arts icebreaker that engages students in writing and interviewing their peers. Students choose a partner to interview. They employ the information from that interview to create a baseball carte about the person they interviewed. A digital picture of the student appears on the front of the bill of fare and the information appears on the dorsum.

"I will lay out the completed cards with the fact-side upwards (picture side down), and each pupil has a chance to guess which description belongs to which educatee," Tempest added.

And then she puts plastic organizer pages into an album and slides all the cards into the plastic sleeves. "Kids enjoy looking at the cards all twelvemonth long," she said, "and new students to the form beloved to look through it and learn about their classmates."

Twelve More than Icebreaker Activities

Has Heather Migdon or Pamela Tempest given yous a new thought for an icebreaker action? If you're nevertheless searching for the perfect idea, perhaps one of the ideas below submitted by Instruction World readers will fill the pecker...

And don't forget our Icebreaker Activities Archive. In that location y'all volition find a dozen volumes of icebreakers -- more than 150 ideas! for fun ways to get to know your students!

Two Truths and a Prevarication.
Give each student an index card. Have them write on the carte three truths nigh themselves and one lie. Model the activity for them based on your own life, then they tin can encounter how the prevarication must be something that is conceivable in light of the truths they list. When they guess one of your truths as the prevarication, tell the real story that goes along with the truth. Keep until they uncover the lie. Accept each student write his or her ain truths and prevarication. Then do iii to five of them each 24-hour interval during the first week of school. When yous have a lot of students who know one another, practise not name the author of the truths and lie. Have students guess who authored the menu.
Mary Lou Bettez, Flat River Center School, Coventry, Rhode Isle

Conflicting Greeting
This is a fun and featherbrained first-solar day activity. Adjust students into a circle. Have them pretend they are from another planet. Have them retrieve of a sound and motion that might be used every bit a greeting on that planet. (A sound and motion that would replace a typical American greeting such as a quick wave and a "Hello!") Once students have decided on their greeting, showtime the activity by using your conflicting greeting to greet the person to your left. That person should respond by repeating your greeting to you. Then, that person shares his or her conflicting greeting with the form and introduces him/herself to the next person in the circumvolve. Continue until you lot accept made your way effectually the circle. At the terminate of the action, you might ask these questions: What did you learn from this action? Is it more fun to ship out free energy or hold back energy?
Brenda Aspelund, Aldrich Inferior High Schoolhouse, Warwick, Rhode Island

Where-We-Come-From Map
If your school population is fairly transient, take each student write their name on a pocket-size sticky note. Then display a United States map and a world map. Accept children take turns coming to the map and telling the class what their name is and where they were born. Then they put their sticky note on the state where they were born. If they were born in some other country, find that land'south location on the world map. Follow up this activity by creating a graph that shows from which states students come; include an "other" bar on the graph for children who were born outside the U.Due south.
Joan Kleindorfer, Timbercrest Unproblematic School, Deltona, Florida

Q&A Hands
Have students work in pairs to trace i of each other'due south hands. When the hands are traced, have them write one of the questions below -- or any other question of your choosing -- on each finger of the hand.

• What is your favorite Television receiver testify?
• If y'all could choose your future career today, what would you be?
• What is your favorite school field of study?
• If you could travel to anyplace in the earth, where would you become?
• What is your favorite sport to sentry or play?

You lot might provide students with as many equally x questions. That style, they can pick and choose which ones they respond. Take students write the answers to their questions on the fingers. When they have finished with their Q&A easily, give each student an opportunity to innovate themselves to their classmates past sharing the information they have written on their hands. With older students, encourage them to share more the surface data; have them explicate the "why" behind their responses. Hang the hands up in the classroom to create a fun display.
Angela Bryant, Moore Intermediate Schoolhouse, Florence, South Carolina

Brute Quiz
This icebreaker works well in a middle or high school science classes. It presents a humorous quiz that emphasizes that students often think besides hard in science; sometimes the answers are much more than obvious or easy than students might initially retrieve. Start the activity by providing students with a sheet of scrap writing paper. Announce that yous are going to nowadays a little quiz about textile they should already know. Preface the questions by maxim that the events in the question are all happening concurrently (at the same time). Following are the quiz questions:

1. How do you get a giraffe into a refrigerator?
2. How do you get an elephant into a refrigerator?
3. The Lion King is having a coming together and has invited every animal on World to the meeting. What animal does not show up?
4. There is a lake full of angry crocodiles and you need to get to the other side. How do y'all do it?

Answers to the quiz:

1. You simply push information technology in.
2. First yous have to pull out the giraffe in order to push in the elephant.
3. The elephant doesn't show upward, because it is in the refrigerator.
4. But swim across, because all the animals are at the coming together.

Reiterate your earlier signal that sometimes answers in science, equally in life, are much easier than we make them out to be!
James Hall, Teague Middle School, Altamonte Springs, Florida

Survey Says
This is an thought for a engineering instructor or any other teacher! On the first day, accept students consummate an online survey regarding your content expanse. This activeness can be done in a variety of means: You can create the survey using text fields in MS Word or using an online course server such as Blackboard. Yous can post the survey on your school'south Web site or simply hand students a hard copy. If you lot take the hardware, this is a wonderful style to integrate engineering science and to get important information from students.
Michael Smith, Lombard Eye School, Baltimore, Maryland

Construction Zone
Arrange students into groups of three or four. Give each group a deck of cards. Explain that each group will employ the cards to build a house. They can decide to enter their house in any one of 3 contests: the Biggest House Contest, the Strongest Business firm Contest, or the Most Creative House Competition. They tin use whatever supplies they tin can observe -- record, glue, staples, and and so on -- to help them build their business firm or they tin rip, fold, bend, or otherwise alter the cards. But here is the catch! Students are not allowed to talk during this whole process! They need to find other ways by which to communicate. Prepare a time limit for the activity, and gear up a timer to ensure that groups are constantly aware of the time remaining. Later the houses are built, each group gets to share their house and how they learned to communicate. This is a cracking team-edifice activeness.
Tracy Neibergall, Southwest Elementary School, Lawson, Missouri

Treasure Hunt
Plan a treasure hunt to familiarize students with your classroom. List 20 to 30 items found in the classroom and take the students search the classroom for those items. This way they volition know where to find the dictionaries, glue sticks, spelling lists, graphic organizers, and and then on. As they find an item, take students check it off the list. Not simply does this action familiarize students with the classroom, it has them asking questions virtually the materials!
Madeline McDougal, Pocantico Schools, Sleepy Hollow, New York

Word Cards
This activeness is best when students are starting in a new school and will take many classmates they have never met before. Provide each student with a iv- x v-inch index carte. Have students write their first and last names in the middle of the bill of fare. In each corner of the card have students write about themselves. The specific data to be written can be assigned by the teacher. For example:

• Height Left Corner: Number of brothers and sisters
• Top Correct Corner: Favorite style of music or favorite music grouping or musician
• Bottom Left Corner: Favorite moving-picture show
• Bottom Right Corner: Dream vacation (land or city)

When the cards are completed, accept students partner with a classmate they do not know. The students merchandise cards and read what their partner has written. For the side by side two minutes, 1 student plays the role of questioner and asks the other educatee almost the topics listed on the card and most anything else they would like to know. When the teacher announces the end of the two minutes, the students trade roles; at present the other partner asks the questions. Y'all might echo this several times. Each fourth dimension, the pupil will do the activity with a different partner they exercise non know. You might collect the cards and repeat the action on the second or third day of school. The kids take fun with this activity. Having some information on the card is the central ice-breaking element, especially for those students who might otherwise have difficulty starting a chat with a stranger.
Marian Larson, Ft. Vancouver Loftier Schoolhouse, Vancouver, Washington

A Sticky Situation
A principal did this action with this teacher, so she idea she would pass it forth Hand out several gluey notes to each educatee. Let students mingle, placing each of their sticky notes on the back of any private in the classroom. After this is done, take students render to their seats. Have them count the number of sticky notes on the back of the person who sits in front end or next to them. How many sticky notes did they count? Inform them that they are to tell that many things almost their summer pause or most themselves. For example, if the person in forepart of pupil x had 5 mucilaginous notes on his back, then student x must tell five things about his/her summertime or about him/herself.
Jessica Thomas, St. John's School, Trivial Chute, Wisconsin

Welcome to Our Thou
Cut watch fence posts out of large art newspaper. Give each student a watch. Ask students to draw on that watch things that he or she wants others to know about them -- for example, hobbies, likes and dislikes, sports... When students have completed their pickets, hot glue them along the bottom of a wall -- under the chalkboard, for case -- to create a spotter contend.
Treasa Walker, Lewis and Clark Middle Schoolhouse, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Working Together for All-time Results
Adapt students into modest groups of 3 or four students. Give to half of the groups a big sheet of drawing newspaper and this simple assignment: Describe a moving-picture show of a person. Requite the other groups a large canvass of drawing paper cut into three or four equal sections (depending on the number of students in the group). Assign each person in each grouping of 3 to describe part of a person (for example, the head, upper trunk, or lower body). The students will piece of work independently to create their drawings of function of a person. When the drawings are done, share the results with the form. Inquire students to tell about the differences between drawings created past groups that worked together and groups that worked independently. The drawings produced by groups that worked together appear more whole and true than those produced independently, which might announced funny because the head and legs might be female while the upper body might be that of a football player! Use the drawings to drive home the point that students ordinarily produce a better result when they work together than when they work solo. This is a lesson that can exist referred to throughout the yr when students are expected to work in small, cooperative groups.
Mandi, Adult Education Service, Wolverhampton, England

More than Classroom Icebreaker Activities

Volume 1: Tell Me About You lot Activities	Volume vii: Getting to Know One Another
Volume 2: 14 Activities for the First Days of Schoolhouse	Volume eight: Who'southward in the Classroom?
Volume 3: Engaging Activities for the First Days of School	Volume nine: My Classmates and Me
Volume 4: Activities for the First Day of School	Volume 10: Back-to-School Activities
Volume 5: All-About-Y'all Activities for the Start Days of School	Volume 11: More than Fresh Ideas for Opening Solar day
Volume 6: Get to Know Your Classmates Activities	Volume 12: Excellent Activities for Getting Students Warmed Up

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Last updated on 07/17/2017

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