17 activities for meeting your new class

Here are some tried-and-tested inspiration for meeting new class activities, whether you’re organising transition day activities in July or welcoming your new class in September. These ideas will help children settle quickly, build friendships and help you get to know each other a little better!

What’s in this article: 17 get-to-know-you activities for transition day and meeting your new class

• How can teachers get to know their new class?
• Which transition day activities help children build friendships?
• What are the most creative meeting new class activities?
• Are there any quick transition day ideas?
• Meeting new class activities FAQs

How can teachers get to know their new class?

Getting to know your new class is about creating opportunities for conversation and self-expression. Activities that encourage children to share their interests, personalities and experiences also help teachers learn more about their pupils before the year gets underway.

My story sack

Ask children to bring in three items from home that represent who they are to put in the class story stack - don’t forget to do this yourself as well! This could be a teddy, a piece of clothing, a medal, a certificate, a picture, a food item, or anything that symbolises a hobby they enjoy. They could either share these with a partner, or in a small group, or to the whole class! Perhaps the other children could guess what the items represent first?

Figure me out

Create a poster designed around numbers used to describe yourself. For example, your age, birth day or year, number of siblings or pets, number of years you’ve been teaching, etc. Cover each number with a Post-it note containing a number sentence that gives the answer to the number hidden below. These can obviously be differentiated depending on the age group you’re teaching. There are a number of examples of these sort of posters online. Ask children to create their own ‘Figure me out’ posters of their own, ready for display!

Dear Future Me

Ask the children to write “Dear Future Me” letters to themselves to read at the end of the academic year. It could include how they’re currently feeling about starting the year, their targets for the year, what they’re looking forward to or are worried about etc. As always, it’s good to model this first! You could write one for yourself too. Collect them in and hide them away to read at the end of the year. You could even bury them in the school field and plant something on top (something that will grow in a year!)

Choose a class story together

You may have already chosen a book based on your first topic. If so, consider using it the following term (when the children will already have the knowledge of the topic to benefit their understanding of the text – see Doug Lemov’s theory regarding embedding non-fiction) and instead, allow the class to choose their first text. Choose 5-6 high-quality texts (or more, depending on how much time you have!) and discuss them with the children – show the front covers, read the blurbs and maybe the first page. Get children to vote for their favourite one!

Apply/interview for class jobs

Ask your class to ‘apply’ for a job they want to do around the classroom: this could be from a list stipulated by you, or they could come up with their own job ideas - as long as they’re helpful! These could either be formal written applications (which could also perhaps be used as a bit of writing assessment opportunity), or real-life ‘interviews’ in front of the class!

Learning by Questions

Using a topic you’re going to teach first (perhaps place value in maths), select a task on Learning by Questions from a year or two below the one you’re teaching (i.e. if you’re teaching year 5, choose a year 3 or 4 task). For the majority of children, it should give a sense of success (as hopefully they’ll be able to answer most of the questions being from an age group lower than their own).

Looking for more transition activities?

Read our 5 exciting primary to secondary transition activities for year 6. It includes practical activities to help children feel confident and prepared for the next stage of their education.

Find out more

Don't give the right answer

This is a fun, fast-thinking game (less ‘get-to-know-you’ in terms of facts about each child, but it certainly allows you to learn a lot about how they think!). Stand your class in a circle (or they could line up in teams), and ask them each an easy, quick-fire question - however, the catch is that they must answer it incorrectly (but it must also be a reasonable answer)! If they answer it correctly, they sit out.

Top tip: prepare the questions beforehand!

Here are some examples (they must be easy questions that everyone would know the answer to):

• What’s your name? (answer with a name - just not your name)
• What is my name?
• How old are you? (answer with an age - just not your age!)
• What colour is your top? (answer with a colour - just not the actual colour of your top!)
• What day is it today? (as above - the answer must be an actual day!)
• What is our school called?

Which transition day activities help children build friendships?

The best transition day activities encourage children to work together, communicate and discover shared interests. Team-building games are a great way to break the ice, helping children feel more comfortable with any new classmates from the very start.

Parachute game

Now, of course this doesn’t actually have to be done with a parachute (the children can just swap places across a circle) but as lots of schools seem to have them, it adds a bit of extra fun! Ask children to spread evenly around the parachute, each holding some of the edge. When you shout out some criteria, everyone lifts up the parachute and those who meet the criteria let go of their edge, run underneath the parachute and swap with someone else. This could be children with August birthdays, those who have dogs, those who wear glasses… it’s particularly fun to shout something that applies to everyone (“Swap if you’re in my class this year!”) so they all have to run underneath and find another edge before the parachute falls down!

Bridge or bubbles

Find a large space for your class to be able to spread out. The children must either arrange themselves in a specific order (e.g., alphabetical, by birthday) to make a ‘bridge’, or group themselves with others who share something in common to make ‘bubbles’. This encourages conversation, as they need to talk with classmates to figure out where they belong in the line, or to find the right group to join. (Some ‘bridge’ ideas could include lining up in order of birthday, alphabetical order of names or by height; some ‘bubble’ ideas could be grouping by number of siblings, or how they travelled to school).

Bingo

Create a sheet with around 20 ‘Find someone who…’ statements on. You can find lots of these online but it’s good to personalise these to your own class, such as ‘Find someone who joined this school in Year 3’; ‘Find someone whose favourite subject is science’; ‘Find someone who can speak another language’, etc. Ask the children to circulate the class and find a different name to fill in every box – you can take part too!

What are the most creative meeting new class activities?

Creative activities help children express their personalities while giving teachers the opportunity to learn more about their interests and strengths. They're also ideal for producing classroom displays that help create a welcoming environment for the new school year.

Paint story stones

Story stones are a lovely way to foster creativity amongst children. You may have seen them as ‘story telling dice’, or ‘story cubes’: each die (or cube) has a different picture on it, and you roll multiple dice and then create a story based on the images shown. To add a more personal layer to this, bring in a stone for each child, and ask them each to paint their own picture on it (perhaps discuss as a class first to make sure there is enough variety in their ideas!). Show them the picture below to inspire discussion about ideas!

Julian Opie style portraits

Julian Opie has a very specific style of art – luckily one that is fairly simple to recreate, but effective! Take photos of the children’s faces, close up and in good lighting and print them in A4. In thick black pen (or something that will soak through to the other side of the paper), children should trace the outline of their faces and other key features, such as nostrils and pupils. Flip the photo over and the ink should have soaked to the other side. Using another piece of paper, trace the outline – then paint! Encourage the children to stick to bold, bright colours.

Collaborative wall art

There’s something wonderfully satisfying about creating a huge piece of artwork made up from the efforts of every individual child. Choose your picture, upload it to a wall art generator, and give each child their own section to colour or paint. Here’s one I did with my class a couple of years ago to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee.

Are there any quick transition day ideas?

If you're short on time, there are plenty of simple activities that can be completed in 10-20 minutes with very little preparation. These quick transition day ideas are perfect if you're meeting your new class for just an afternoon or a single session.

Chatterboxes

Kids love to make these at any opportunity, so why not beat them to the punch and make it an actual class activity? You may need to pair your more expert origamists (yes - really a word!) with the novices, but it really is very quick to pick up (there are many templates available online for free). Ask the children to come up with eight questions that they can write inside, and then have the whole class circulate with their paper fortune tellers, finding out more about each other!

Two truths and a lie

An oldie, but a goodie (you could always change the word ‘lie’ to something else if you prefer - a myth? An untruth? A fabrication?). Have each child come up with two true statements about themselves, and one that’s made-up (encourage them to not think of something ludicrous, which is obviously a lie!). The rest of the class should then guess the truths - and hopefully learn something about each other along the way!

Shopping game

Everyone knows this classic memory game: “I went to the shops and bought an apple… I went to the shops and bought an apple and a banana… I went to the shops and bought an apple, a banana and some cream…” etc. Try this with something important or special to each child as you go round the circle. For example, “Freddie went to the shops and bought a football… Freddie bought a football and Luna bought some books… Freddie bought a football, Luna bought some books and Sahil bought a cat…” etc.

Google box

Children are the most inquisitive of creatures, as we know! As much as we’d love to be able to answer everything on the spot, it’s not always possible. Start a box (or use a blank exercise book) that children can use to post/write any questions they have – about anything! Each morning (or once a week, depending on how many questions you get), spend some time going through the questions and answering them (probably best to Google them beforehand rather than in front of the children – unless it’s a fairly straightforward one like ‘How many people are in the world?’)

Meeting new class activities FAQs

What are some good transition day activities?

Transition day activities should help children feel comfortable in their new classroom while getting to know their teacher and classmates. Icebreakers such as Two Truths and a Lie, Bridge or Bubbles and Class Bingo are great starting points, while collaborative projects like wall art or story stones help children build relationships through teamwork.

What activities can I do with my new class in September?

September is a great time to combine icebreakers with activities that help you learn about your pupils. Story sacks, Figure Me Out posters, class job interviews and collaborative art projects all encourage children to share their personalities while helping you establish positive classroom relationships.

Want help with start-of-year baseline data? Check out our blog on when to use SATs papers for class assessment.

What are good KS2 transition activities?

The best KS2 transition activities encourage teamwork, communication and confidence. Activities such as Bridge or Bubbles, Parachute Games, Chatterboxes and Dear Future Me help pupils make new friendships while preparing them for the year ahead.

How can I help children get to know each other quickly?

Choose activities that require children to talk, collaborate and find common interests. Icebreakers such as Class Bingo, Shopping Game and Two Truths and a Lie encourage conversation naturally, while creative group projects help children build relationships over a longer session.

What’s a good ice breaker for a class?

Simple games like Chatterboxes, Two Truths and a Lie or Bridge or Bubbles are excellent class icebreakers because they require very little preparation while encouraging every child to take part. They're ideal for both transition days and the first few weeks of term.