Back to School Icebreakers

Last week when I was moving classrooms and setting up for the new year.

One bulletin board complete and one more to go~this theme is "Stepping Up With Sixth Graders."

School begins next week for the students in our district. The first few weeks are called "the honeymoon" because everyone (including me) is on his or her best behavior. This is also the time when everyone is just getting to know everyone else. Today I'm compiling a list of fun, back-to-school icebreakers that you can use to get to know your students.

One of the things I like to do is write a welcome letter to my students; I make sure that it is at least a page in length and includes a variety of verbs, specific nouns, and sentence varieties. I want to start off the year modeling good writing.

I also play Back-to-School Bingo with my students~these are easy to create or you can purchase or find them for free online.

Another fun game is Two Truths and a Lie~students write down two truths about themselves and one lie. Then, they introduce the three "facts" to the rest of the class or group. Students try to guess which one is the lie.

In Birthday Partners, students walk around and identify the person whose birthday (not year-just month and date) is closest to their own. Then the two students identify at least two or three things that they have in common.

Have students create a Coat of Arms~find or create a shield template and have students decorate it to introduce themselves to the class. They could draw the picture of an animal that represents them, favorite hobbies or foods, a country or state that you have visited, representation of family members, a symbol of your role as a student, two or three adjectives that describe their personality. Give time for students to share their projects and post around the room. 

Have the kids come up with funny alliterations to help everyone remember each other's names. For example, mine could be Marvelous Melissa makes muffins for Mikey. 

In Unique and Shared, students have to dig deeper into getting to know each other. Break students up into groups of 5. Each group needs a sheet of paper and a pencil. The recorder creates a list of traits that members of the group have in common and then he or she writes down unique traits that each member has. If time allows, get groups to share.

In Comic Strip Chaos, you would prepare individual frames of several comic strips. Have the same number of frames for the number of students that you have. Each student takes one frame and searches for others with the same comic strip. After students have found one another, they must arrange themselves so that the sequence of frames is in the correct order. 

These are just few of the icebreaker type of activities that I've used over the years. With a little research and some creativity, you could come up with your own.

What are some of your favorite icebreakers?