17 get to know your class activities from Sophie Bartlett

You might already be thinking of some ‘get to know your class activities’, especially as that first day back can bring lots of excitement and nervous energy – for both teachers and children alike. Here are some ideas for easing everyone back into the chaos that is term-time and for helping everyone get to know each other a little better!

17 get-to-know-you class activities

These are tried and tested get-to-know-you activities that my pupils and I have loved.

1. 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!

2. 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.

3. 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!

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4. 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?

5. 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!

6. 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!

7. 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!

8. 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).

9. My story sack

Ask children to bring in three items from home that represent who they are - 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?

10. 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.

11. 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 their own ready for display!

12. Learning by Questions

Using a topic you’re going to teach first (perhaps place value in maths), select a task on LbQ 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). Set the children up on it to introduce them to LbQ. 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) but also give you a good idea of where any gaps might be so you can address them accordingly in your upcoming lessons. Trial LbQ’s Wayfinder for free and have a go with your class.

13. 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.

14. 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!

15. 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!

16. Dear Future Me

Ask the children to write 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!)

17. 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?’)