8 Fun Get to Know Your Students Activities
As a new school year kicks off, we know how important it is to create a welcoming environment for our students. Making connections and building strong teacher-student relationships can set the stage for a year of amazing learning, memories, and growth!
Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just getting started on your teaching adventure, this blog post will give you some ideas for fun activities you can do at the beginning of the year to get to know your students!
A Letter to My Teacher
Give your students a one-on-one way to tell you a little more about themselves by having them write a letter to you. This is a great opportunity for every student to have a chance to tell you things about themselves without having to share them with the whole class.
Some students might need some prompts to get their letter writing ideas flowing. I like to share a list of prompts with possible topics they might want to include. Some prompts I suggest include:
- Tell me about your family.
- What sports, classes, or other activities you participate in?
- What is your favorite school subject?
- Are there school subjects that are challenging for you?
- How do you learn best- independently, with a partner, in small groups, by reading information, hearing information or watching information etc..
- What are some things you are looking forward to this year?
- Are there any things you have questions or worries about this school year?
- What is something you want to improve/get better at this year?
- Is there anything that makes learning or finishing your work a challenge?
- Who are your friends in our class?
So many great things have been shared with me through my students’ letters! Having students write a letter to you can help you really get to know them on a personal level right away. This is a great first week of school activity!
Student surveys
Surveys are fun, quick, and easy for students to fill out, and they also provide you with a ton of valuable information! You can give general surveys about school and learning or subject-specific surveys in classes like math and reading. My reading surveys and math surveys include a variety of different types of interest inventories and questionnaires you can use with your students.
Reading surveys and math surveys are a way to get to know students’ learning styles, academic interests, strengths, and weaknesses in a low-stress way!
Surveys are great to use as morning work during the first week of school or for those times when you have 5-10 minutes to fill before you need to go to lunch, recess, or gym class.
Kahoot
Kids go bonkers for playing Kahoot! This free website (kahoot.com) allows you to make interactive quizzes where students compete against the clock and their classmates to answer questions.
A fun way to start the year is by making a quick Kahoot game about yourself. This is an engaging way for your students to get to know more about you. I include questions about how many years I have been teaching, how many pets I have, my favorite dessert, my favorite color, and more.
After the get to know your teacher Kahoot game, it is fun to make a get to know the class Kahoot game.
To do this, have each student write a multiple-choice question about themselves with 4 possible answers. (1 correct answer, 3 incorrect answers) Encourage students to think of a fun and interesting question, something people might not already know. Make sure you have them circle the correct answer.
Then, use the student-generated questions to create a get to know the class Kahoot game, this time each question will be about a different student. Kids love it when their question pops up in the game and they get a kick out of seeing how their classmates respond. It is also a fun way to get to know your students even more!
Math All About Me Banner
Get to know your students in math class by making a math all about me banner!
Each student will complete their own pennant that will be included in the banner. Students share more about themselves by writing math equations that describe information about themselves that involve numbers.
Get everything you need to make this banner with the Math All About Me Banner project in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. This resource includes a banner template along with a planning page and a list of questions for students to brainstorm numerical facts about themselves.
This activity not only helps you get to know your students, but also gets students thinking mathematically, and makes a beautiful display for your hallway or a class bulletin board.
Group Challenge
Get to know your students and how they work in groups by giving them a small group or whole class challenge.
Kids love a challenge, no matter how big or small it may be. You might even want to add an extra challenge of “no talking” to your directions to observe students’ non-verbal communication and interactions.
Some group challenge ideas are:
- Without talking, line up alphabetically
- Get into groups based on your birthday month
- Find a way to fit everyone inside the square (I put a square outline with painter’s tape on the floor that would be a reasonably challenging size for everyone to get into)
- Give small groups a stack of index cards and challenge them to make the tallest tower that can stand on its own.
- Secret message- Think of a word or phrase that has the same amount of letters as you have students. Write one letter on each index card. Give each student a card with a letter on it. The challenge is for students to work together to use all of the cards to unscramble a word or phrase.
Challenges are a great way for you to sit back and observe how students work together, how they communicate with each other, who stands out as a leader, who is hesitant to participate or share ideas, and so much more!
Bio Poem Project
Another get to know your students’ activity that will also create a beautiful hallway display is the bio poem project. Give students a bio poem outline and have them fill in the blank lines in the poem with details about themselves. Have them write their final copy on a fun t-shirt outline or on colorful paper with drawings to illustrate their poem.
Grab my Bio Poem Project in my Teachers Pay Teachers store to get everything you need for students to plan their bio poems, write a rough draft, and create their final copy to make a t-shirt all about them!
find someone who
Get your students up and moving, and communicating with their new classmates by using a find someone who…activity. You can even join in on the fun and get to know your students in a fun, relaxed atmosphere.
Make a grid with 20-30 squares. Each square should have something that could describe one of the students. Some ideas could include: Find someone who…has 2 pets, ate eggs for breakfast, has been to summer camp, went swimming in a lake this summer, or tried something new for the first time this summer.
Everyone circulates around the room asking their classmates (and teacher!) if they fit one of the criteria. I tell students that they can only ask one question when they pair up with a classmate, and they have to actually ask the question, not just point to a box or say “Which one describes you?”. They can always return to ask a classmate a second question after they have interacted with other classmates.
This is a great activity for students to meet new classmates and practice their communication skills with their peers!
You can grab a find someone who activity, along with several other community-building activities, in my Get to Know You Back to School Activities pack.
Our Class in graphs
Looking at data and graphs is so much more meaningful for students when the data is about them!
Get to know your students, and help them get to know each other, by collecting data on a variety of student friendly topics and having students make graphs all about their class.
You might choose one question to collect data on and make a graph for each day as a whole class or assign one question/topic to each student and have them each collect data and make a graph to display that data.
This is a fun way to get to know your students while also reviewing different types of graphs and data landmarks.
Hang the class graphs up around the room or on a bulletin board. Your students will love to see their work, and the data about them and their classmates on display around the room.
Grab my Our Class in Graphs resource and get everything you need to make a variety of bar graphs, line plots, pictographs, histograms, and circle graphs all about your class!
See all of my back-to-school resources and activities in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
There are so many fun ways to get to know your students at the beginning of a new school year. Whether you have 5 minutes, 15 minutes, or an hour, I hope this post gave you some fun ideas that you can add to your back to school plans!
Have a wonderful school year!
Looking for more back-to-school ideas? Check out this post:
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