Fifteen Getting to Know You Activities for the Beginning of the Year

Getting a new class this year? Teaching grade 7? Meeting students for the first time? Getting to know your students and getting them to know each other, is essential to creating a welcoming atmosphere and sustaining a positive learning environment.  Here are a few things you can do in your classroom to start off the year with:  

1: Desk placards

Prepare placards to students with their names before they enter the classroom for the first time. Tell students when they come in to sit next to their name. Have them place those placards on their desks in front of them where you, the teacher and friends, can see them.  

Use Stickers and a Classroom Management Website

Use https://class123.ac/ and "open a class" for your class. https://class123.ac/ allows you to screen students' names on the board and allocate points (this is a classroom management tool) but it also has the option to print out name tags or name stickers. Have students stick those sticker names to their shirts on the first lesson.

Another classroom management tools is classdojo.com.

 

Name Stickers on class123

2: Name Toss

Preparation: bring several soft balls.

A: A student stands in a circle and tosses the ball and says his/her name. We do this until most students have participated.

B: Students toss the ball but they start with "Your name is…", trying to review all the names.  

C: A volunteer student or the teacher can toss the ball to each student in the circle and say his or her name.

3: Picture it!

Preparation: prepare 8x10 poster papers/ laptops using PowerPoint.

A: Each student prepares a poster (or a PowerPoint Slide) with his/her name on it. They add a picture or an explanation that will help the other students remember their name better.

You can create a "Name Museum", students stand next to their posters/laptops and present and explain their poster names.   

 

Each student prepares a poster

4: Crosswords

Several students write their names in large letters on the board. Other students write their names as a crossword formation starting with a letter that appears in any name on the board. Students will read all the names that cross  their name (same cluster) and they try to identify the students as they read.

Name crosswords

5: A Digital Introduction

Students go to a "Padlet" board or a "Linoit" board that the teacher prepared in advance. Each student posts a note with a picture and an introduction. This is a shared board so each student can see what the others wrote and get to know them.

A digital Introduction

6: The Story of my name

Students walk around and tell stories about their names to other students. The teacher should walk around and listen to as many stories as he/she can.

When students get back to their seats, students/teacher recall one fact they remember about someone else's name. Classmates whose name stories are recalled verify or correct the facts.

7: Names and Adjectives

Students think of an adjective that describes them and that begins with the same letter as their name. Example: "Musical Miriam".

The second student repeats the first student's name together with the adjective and adds their own name and adjective combinations.

This can be done in rows (each row is a group) or in small circles. After students become thoroughly familiar with the names of students in one group, they can form new groups to learn the names of other students.

8: I am and I love

Students sit in groups and say their names and the names of something or someone they love. or a few of them. (I am Ron and I love ice cream and chocolate/ I am Miri and I love my sister and my best friend Ben) Then, students call out what they remember and say whose love comes close to a love of their own and explain why.

Bonus: Prepare in advance a "Wheel of Fortune" with Students names.

Spin the wheel. Students need to say as many things as they can remember about the student the wheel randomly picked!

I am and I love...

9: Use real pictures

Take pictures of students and print them out. On the next lesson, give each student his/her picture and have them write their names and something to remember them by. You can collect all the pictures and study them and you can use the pictures to call attendance until you are sure of all the names. 

Students can walk around and tell other students what they have chosen to be remembered by.

With the whole class, students can share names they recall and what helped spark their memory.

Use real pictures

You can also try to have them work on a shared Google Slide. Each  student designs his/her own PowerPoint Slide. Students share the slide and therefore are able to see and read each other's slides. Comments can be added and students can ask each other questions and get to know each other better.

10: The letter

Preparation: write a letter about yourself to your students. Make enough copies to your students.

In class, read the letter out loud. Then, ask students to write a letter about themselves.

Collect the letters and prepare a "Guess Who" activity for the next lesson.

Ask students to write a letter about themselves

11: Guess who?

Preparation: read through the letters students wrote and create a "guess who" chart.

In this game, students walk around the class and ask other students questions, to find out the answers to the questions. When they find the correct person, they ask for their signature next to the question.

Examples: Guess who…

1.   has been in New Zealand three times.

2.   is afraid of flying.

3.   has six brothers.

You can digitize the activity by uploading the "Guess Who" activity on to a shared Google Doc. Make this a fun competition by having students fill in the names of the students as fast and as correctly as they can. This will encourage them to walk around asking questions but running back to their desks to complete the information on the laptop, making this a shared effort to fill in the chart collaboratively. 

12: Three things about me

Students write down three interesting things about themselves in three different notes. Students get up and mingle. They tell facts about themselves to different classmates.  Every time a fact matches something in the life of a classmate, the other classmate acknowledges it and they put the notes together in a pile. Students continue mingling until they managed to sort all the cards and place all the similar ones together.  

Volunteers can speak to the whole class about interesting information they have learned about various classmates.

13: Mutual Interviews

Students sit in pairs and take turns interviewing each other. They cannot take notes; they must listen carefully.

Each pair joins another pair and each interviewer introduces his/her partner to the foursome. You can then have volunteers introduce their partners to the entire class.

14: Missing person announcement

Students look around and choose a classmate. They then write up a missing person announcement. They can describe the person (using positive language only!) and even draw the person.

Students hang the posters on the walls and students walk about and guess who the people are.

Example:

Have you seen my good friend Tom?

He was last seen reading in the H4 classroom.

He is about 1.70 Meters tall….

I hope you can help me find him.

15: Scheduling Meetings

Each student gets a sheet of paper with 12 hours (1 O'clock, 2 o'clock etc… or hours like: 2:45 or 3:30 if you want to practice those). Students go around and "schedule a meeting" for every hour written on the paper.

Teacher calls out "a time" and every student "meets" the person he scheduled with. They ask each other questions and get to know each other for three minutes and then students get a different time from the teacher and go on to the next meeting.

Have fun teaching and getting to know your students!

Hili Zavaro

Sources:

Teaching Large Multilevel Classes / Natalie Hess


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