Back-to-school is a day full of drama from meeting new classmates and teachers, getting new schedules and seating arrangements, and feeling comfortable with the old ones.No matter how prepared you are, anxiety will follow you. But what to do to minimize this and build class communities effectively? You can opt for various self-introduction and ice-breaking activities to subsidize the anxiety levels and liven up the class environment.
A stepping stone for building class community
Developing a healthy, inclusive, and engaging class environment is essential. When a sense of class community prevails, students feel comfortable and open up with each other, promoting their cognitive, behavioral, intuitive, socializing, and emotional skills. To reap the benefits of a classroom community, we must first sow the seed of friendship and harmony among children. Back-to-school activities help break the ice, letting the students know about the curriculum, intro about the new session, and boundaries.
Letter to themselves
This game can be used for self-introduction in which students write a short paragraph describing themselves in a few lines. This promotes classroom community building and makes classmates aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. To make this activity memorable, you can give each student their customized name bookmarks and let them know to gear up for an amazing year ahead.
Student scavenger hunt
The scavenger hunt is an exciting game in which teacher or activity organizers give participants a list of items that students need to collect among themselves. You can modify this game and list attributes and skill sets instead of objects. This will help classmates to know who is good at math, who can cook, who is a master of street dance etc. The team which collects the items first wins. You can reward the winning team with a colorful glitter pen to give them a sense of achievement on their first day.
Summer memory
In this activity, students are asked to use six objects to describe a memory or an incident that happened to them in the summer. For this activity, you can provide kids with organizer boxes in which they can bring home objects and describe their stories using them. This activity aims to understand each other’s interests, hobbies, likes, and dislikes and let kids share adventures in the most enjoyable manner.
First-day photo booth
First-day photos are very memorable. They capture your anxiety, excitement, and enthusiasm. No matter how much time has lapsed, it fills you with all the emotions you were going through then. Set a photo booth or capture candid pictures of kids and attach them to the class notebook along with their short messages that the kids can review at the end of term. You can carry on taking pictures of the students on special occasions for the whole year and view them at the end.
Join the bulletin board
Students are asked to put their photo magnets and names on the bulletin board to help their classmates remember their names and faces. You can give the students their acrylic laser bag tags so that they can be identified easily by others.
Guided drawing
Guided drawing is a way to test the artistic capabilities of students. You cannot find any other way of finding the levels of art other than this. In this activity, you provided students with an easy step-by-step guide for drawing a particular cartoon, object, image, etc. You can use trendy movie characters, simple entities like apples, trees, or scenery. Try to select the picture that captures the interest of students. To boost the morale of students, you can give students telescopic colorful pencil bags to keep them stationary.
Self-portrait dolls
The self-portrait dolls activity is a trendy exercise in which students demonstrate their dressing fashions by styling their teddy bears. This game helps in finding the future fashion designers in your classroom community. You can let the students have their bears with them as souvenirs of the first day. The students can sew the dress or use art materials to style their bears and make them their avatars.
Decorate the classroom
Decorating the classroom is a fun activity and can be carried out at any time of the sessions. You can ask children to use the materials provided by you and transform them into many valuable and creative decorative items for the class and the bulletin board. This activity gives children the autonomy to express themselves and bring out their inner artist. Showcasing incredible talents of wall painting, origami, ceiling decors, sketches, posters, etc. Students can also bring home materials, like teachers’ name signs, to make the class more lovely.
Two truths and a lie
This game is one of the best activities to promote interaction among classmates. In this, students sit in circles and share three things about themselves, of which two are true and one lie, and classmates need to identify what is true and what is a lie.
This game helps students share about themselves and gives them the confidence to speak up. This game boosts the morale of students and reduces the fear of public speaking among students. To make students more comfortable, you can reward them with a crayon box lanyard as a welcoming gesture.
Decorate your T-shirt
This messy and enjoyable activity gives kids the space to explore their hidden talents. In this activity, you provide students with handprints T-shirts and ask them to paint them and decorate them how they like. Every kid will come up with their ideas and imagination for decorating it. You can ask students to keep the shirts and wear them on special occasions to promote class unity.
DIY name tags
To create an inclusive class environment, you can develop group activities that reduce differences and enhance class unity. Make random groups and ask children to make beaded name tags individually. You can assist them in the process; once the self-designed name tags are completed, you can ask children to display them like an exhibition. Reward each student with a rainbow wooden bead lanyard as a symbol of appreciation and participation.
Hurry up!
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