Inside: Find out a variety of easy back to school activities for teachers to “Get to Know” your students to help build connections and community in your classroom.
It’s crucial, at the beginning of the school year, to quickly get to know your student’s and their names. This helps to build positive rapport and connection with them. Students also need to get to know each other’s names, as well, to start building friendships with students they may not know.
I make it a priority to incorporate a variety of fun back to school activities for teachers to help to learn about your students and ‘break the ice.’ This also helps children feel more at ease in their new setting.
There is a variety of back to school activities that I share here, including; games, printables and tips. I use these to make this time fun and help build a community spirit and a feeling of belonging in my class. They can be easily be incorporated in the first week back to school.
Why not signup for the FREE Teachers Resource Library here and get all sorts of great printables:
My tried and tested back to school activities for teachers that I use regularly include:
First day “Get to Know You” Games
These games are a great way to get students moving around, which helps break the ice and helps them to talk to other kids.
The use of games is a strategic way to incorporate movement time away from the student desks and promote interaction. It also gives students a brain break that can be fun.
Using games it also a great time to discuss with your students your expectations for student behaviour in your classroom.
- ‘Get to know you’ Bingo
- Two truths and a lie
- Icebreaker Beach Ball
First Day Back to school activities for teachers – to “Get to Know You”
Students can do other these activities at their desks or small groups on the carpet.
When finished you can come back together as a whole class everyone can share their responses.
You can also display some of these activity sheets on the classroom wall to share with each other.
- Class names word search – go here to make your own
- All about me activity – here is a link for this type of activity from Teacher Starter All About Me Cube
- Name-plates/ labels for their desks
- Selfie drawings – self-portraits – when completed display in the classroom – go here for ideas
- ‘Get to Know you’ quiz or activity sheets
- Journal Writing – a) Recount of my school holidays, b) My favourite holiday activity etc
- In Australia, I also do Australia Day activities
Sign up here to get access to the FREE Teachers Resource Library, including ‘Get To Know You Bingo’:
Back to school activities for teachers – tips to quickly get to know your students’ names
My goal in the first week of school is to remember my students’ names by the end of the first day.
Quite a difficult task, especially if you have a large class.
To help you with this, I’m sharing some of the tips that I use to speed up this process:
- Before the first day of school, print out your class list of names with each student’s photograph matched to their name
- Get familiar with the students’ names when you make the new year’s classroom management supports – as you write the students names onto the pegs for your behaviour clip chart, labelling paddle-pop sticks with the student’s names for my ‘Pick a Stick.’ See my article for ideas about Successful Positive Classroom Management strategies
- After organising the arrangement of your student desks, you can draw out the seating plan on a pad and after the students are seated on the first day, jot down each of their names on the diagram. You then use this to match names with faces every time you speak to your students
- Ask students to stay in the same seating arrangement until you have learnt their names
- As a first day activity, get your students to make name badges or nameplates that sit on their desks. When you speak to each student, you can easily match their face with their name
- When you take the roll call on the first day, ask each student to tell you a little bit about themselves. I ask, “What is their favourite thing they like doing the best? or “What is something they feel that the whole class needs to know about them?”
- Move around the classroom and listen intently in the ‘Get to know you’ activities and say each student’s name as you learn it
Other key priorities to teach for back to school
You might be thinking, “O.K. I know I need to get to know my students, but what else should I be teaching them?”
To answer this question, back to school is such an important time of the year to establish your rules and expectations. To teach them their rights and responsibilities, as well as your classroom rewards and consequences. See my post that reviews a terrific book called Assertive Discipline: Positive Behaviour Management for Today’s Classroom. It’s wonderful in explicitly teaching how to set up your behaviour management plan for the year.
Back to school is a crucial time to establish your classroom management plan.
Read my article called 12 Strategies for a Successful Positive Classroom Management Plan to give you tips on what you can cover with your students. Also Fun Attention-Getters for the Classroom with a free printable poster.
Here’s also a great post from Teach 4 the Heart with a podcast called What Not to do on the First Day, which I think is also helpful.
Good luck!
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Other articles for back to school activities for teachers
- Teacher Vision – Getting to Know Your Students
- Scholastic – 10 Fun Back to School Activities and Icebreakers
- Teacher Hub – First Day School activities Students Love
- Teach Starter – Classroom Getting to Know you Icebreaker Games
- Prodigy Game – First Day of School Activities
- Cult of Pedagogy – Classroom Icebreakers
- First day of School Activities for Morning Work
Don’t forget to pin to Pinterest for later!
Remember you are worth it!
Michelle xx
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