The following is adapted from The New Teacher Handbook by Berit Gordon.
Plan activities that honor extroverted and introverted students. Give low-stakes tasks to small groups, require sharing sparingly, and rotate groupings among the entire class. Students who know each other are more likely to be kind to each other, enjoy class, put their energy into learning, participate, and take risks. Of course, we’re going to do community building!
But think about the last time you went to a PD session or meeting and had to do icebreakers. Maybe you liked it, but others around you cringed. Or maybe you worried: What if you didn’t know what to say? What if people judged you? What if you had to share something that embarrassed you? Students share these fears. Our first-day activities need to help students know one another and feel safe at the same time. Here’s how.
What activities should I do?
The following sample activities go from low intensity to increasing involvement and vulnerability. Start with the ones at the top and work your way down as students show they are comfortable. Remember to model each one before they do it.
- Start with puzzles. Wooden puzzles and others with large pieces work best for K–2. The one-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzles from the Play simple games that don’t require much sharing, are quick and quiet, and require few materials, such as rock, paper, scissors; tic-tactoe; twenty questions; and card games (Go Fish, War, Uno®.) Some students tire of sharing in the first days of school, and these allow them to interact with less pressure.
- Give each student in the group a piece of scrap paper and tell them to tear it into a simple shape (a bear, your state, a football, etc.). Once they’ve cleaned up all the torn-off pieces, they vote for the best one. Simple and fun.
- With the whole class, play Would You Rather? (eat pizza or ice cream, play inside or outside, watch TV or play video games, ride a bike or a scooter, etc.). Have students physically move to one side of the room based on their choice.
- Have students stand next to others based on what they have in common. For example, have them find people who wear the same style of shoes, have the same birthday month, have the same number of siblings, or have the same color shirt, toothbrush, or eyes. Or have them line up according to birthday, the number of languages they speak, or alphabetical order.
- Do a partner dance (works best with younger students). Pair them by counting off. While the music plays, they dance together. When the music pauses, they find a new partner before it starts again. They can’t have the same partner twice. At first, you might circulate, quickly encouraging hesitant students to pair with anyone nearby: “Here’s someone! Quick, join up!”
- Put students in groups of three to five. While music plays, one student in the middle performs a move. When the music stops, they tap a student who hasn’t gone yet. That student enters the middle and copies the first student’s move. When the music resumes, the new student creates their own move. The cycle continues, with each tapped student first copying the previous move, then creating a new one when the music starts again.
- Have kids make identity webs. They draw their name in the middle of a paper and then draw lines away from their name or simply list or draw things around it that show who they are. They can write about family, favorite things, hobbies, sports teams, celebrations, places, personality traits, and so on. Students can share favorite web items (“this skateboard because . . .”), discover classmate connections (“Who else loves anime?”), and add new interests throughout the year as they grow and change.
How can I ensure first-day activities run smoothly?
- Start with small groups or partners, not a whole class. Rotate these pairs and small groups frequently, even in the same class or activity. This lets more students get to meet one another in a low-stakes setting.
- Have small groups complete tasks and do more than share about themselves to start. For example, have them solve a puzzle versus share their secret superpower (so much pressure!). Be aware that in secondary school, seven or eight different teachers might do community-building exercises across their first days. This is a lot for those who find it uncomfortable to share a lot or who find the noise and talk overstimulating.
- Assign them tasks and activities in quick time frames. For example, if partners ask each other their favorite TV show or video game, give them each twenty or thirty seconds to speak. They won’t feel on the spot for very long, and this tight pacing will keep everyone on task.
- Model every activity before asking them to do it. This also relieves you of needing a big self-introduction on day one. Students are often too overstimulated to hear it anyway.
- If a few students refuse to participate, don’t make a big deal out of it. They might feel uncomfortable, fear rejection, or want to test out what happens when they refuse. In any case, simply move on with the class and let them be. You might also privately ask an enthusiastic student to encourage them to join.
