1-2-3 Come Do An Icebreaker Craft With Me
What’s On Your Mind? Is an easy and interesting way to get to know your students. Use it as a fun icebreaker for the first day or first week of school.
You can do these in class, if you’re looking for a filler, or if you're pressed for time, send them home to be done as a home-school connection.
Older students can draw their own self-portrait (head) outline, or use one of mine. I've included two boy options, as well as two for girls to choose from.
I find young children do much better if they have some sort of pattern, as they tend to draw rather small circles that items would not be able to fit into.
If you’d like to have a ready-to share activity for the first day of school, include the directions and a template in your “Welcome to school” summer letter or tuck it in your Open House packet, if you have one before the start of school.
By doing this, you'll also have an instant bulletin board ready to go up, after students share their creations. Be sure and make one for yourself to use to explain things and then post as an example. This is my sample that took about 15-minutes, using clip art + adding a photo of my husband and poodle pup Chloe.
I think you’ll enjoy doing it as will your students. No matter what the age group, I've always found that everyone seems to like sharing a little bit about themselves. This is a creative and entertaining way to do that.
You could follow this up with some technology time, and have students type in words to their thoughts and make a word-art picture on the computer using the free tagxedo program as well! I did a sample for me and one for my husband, so you could see a male sample. I filled in the caricature templates (see pix) so they don't look as much like a silhouette as I would have liked.
If you want to use my boy and girl "head templates" click on the link. You'll need to change them to jpegs to use them in Tagxedo, otherwise find a sideview of some other clip art to import.
Click on the link to view/download the What’s On Your Mind activity packet.
Thanks for visiting today. Feel free to PIN away. My "Pin it" button is at the top on the menu bar.
“Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing so great as real strength.” –St. Francis De Sales
- Back To School Ideas
- back to school bulletin board ideas
- September bulletin board ideas
- back to school lessons
- september bulletin boards
- back to school bulletin board
- ideas for the first day or first week of school
- lessons for the first day or first week of school
- activities for the first day or first week of school
- craft activity for the first day first week of school
- getting to know kids activitiy for the first day first week of school
- icebreakers for the first day first week of school
- icebreakers for the first day of school
- icebreakers for back to school,
- back to school crafts
1-2-3 Come Make A Back-To-School Kitty Craft With Me
A kajillion years ago, just before I was student teaching, I had a professor ask us to bring 3 things in a lunch bag that represented us. We’d be sharing it as an icebreaker during our next class.
I really liked this idea and filed it away in my brain, thinking it would be fun to do with my “someday” students. Many “some days” have come and gone and I’ve since seen variations of the “me bags” all over the Internet and on Pinterest.
When I was an aide, only ½ a jillion years ago, I did a writing prompt with my 2nd graders entitled: “The Cat’s Out Of The Bag.” I had an “all about me” checklist, written on a cat’s belly, that they filled out and then read to their classmates.
Later, they colored, cut and glued the cat, to the outside of a brown lunch bag, and after sharing them with their classmates, they hung their cat on the front of their lockers, so passers by could also get to know them.
My kiddos really enjoyed doing them, and we got lots of compliments from hallway visitors. I thought this would be a nice creative twist to my icebreaker bag of long ago.
Here’s what you do:
Make up your own personal “Cat bag” and share it with your students so they get to know a little bit about you too. I included a family photo, (my students always thought it was cool that I have an identical twin), a small stuffed poodle to represent our pet Chloe, a tiny book because I love to read, a pen because I love to write, and paintbrush because I enjoy art.
No matter what grade I taught, I always made samples. My students really enjoyed getting to know me this way, as well as being able to “see” something and refer to it, as they worked on their own project.
Examples also made things easy to explain and acted as an attention grabber as well. Run off the note to the parents, along with the cute cat and “The cat’s out of the bag” sign. There are two on a page to save paper.
Attach them to a brown lunch bag and send them home with students on the first day of school, or during your Open House.
Not only is this an easy and fun way to get to know your students, it will afford an opportunity to give them some practice sharing in front of their new friends.
This is a wonderful alternative to Show and Tell. Plan to have 2-3 children (or as many as time will allow) share their bag each day during snack time, or at the end of the day before dismissal.
Click on the link to view/download The Cat’s Out Of The Bag packet. Thanks for visiting today. Do you have a getting-to-know-you project or icebreaker you’d be willing to share with us? I’d enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or post a comment here.
Feel free to PIN away. My "Pin it" button is at the top on the menu bar. To check out more back-to-school ideas, click on the link, and stay tuned for more articles with lots of FREEBIES through out the summer.
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you can help them become what they are capable of becoming.” –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1-2-3 Come Make A Back To School Icebreaker With Me
"It's 'owl' About Me" is an easy and fun activity that help your new students learn about each other. Completed projects also make a cute bulletin board. If your boards are already filled, use these as a boarder on a hallway wall for an eye-catching display.
I LOVE owls, and by the looks of items available in stores, and PINS on Pinterest, I guess I'm certainly not alone. The word "owl" can be used for a variety of word plays, such as this "Owl" (all) about me activity.
Run off the template on white construction paper. Have students answer the numbered questions, by putting their short answers in the matching numbered areas of the books. The questions appear on the template.
Students color and cut out their owl, and share it with their classmates. Collect them and scatter across a bulletin board. I've included a large owl, with the questions inside, for you to use as the center of your board.
I like to use bright-colored material, burlap, or pin-dot wrapping paper as alternatives to plain b. board paper.
To add more pizzazz to your students' work, giv
e them wiggle eyes and a photo to glue to their creation. Click on the link to view/download the It's Owl About Me Icebreaker.
Thanks for visiting today. As always feel free to PIN anything you think others may find helpful. My "Pin it" button is at the top. If you'd like to see all of the other wonderful educational things that I PIN, simply click on the "Follow me" heart to the right.
"When a person points a finger at someone else. they should remember that 3 are pointing back at them." -Louis Nizer
- BackToSchool
- icebreakers for back to school,
- ideas for the first day of school,
- ideas for the 1st day of school,
- back to school activities,
- ideas for back to school,
- back to school bulletin boards,
- student generated bulletin boards,
- owl activities,
- owl bulletin boards,
- owl bulletin board ideas,
- getting to know your studentss activities,
- It's owl about me
- icebreakers for the first day of school
When I taught high school, I remember running into a mother of a student years later. She shared with me that her son still carried a dog-eared scrap of paper around in his wallet, with a list of positive qualities his classmates had wrote about him in my class! Wow. I never forgot that conversation, and the impact something so simple can have on a person. 
- Run off my letter + the note to parents, explaining the file and requesting a family photo. Send them home the first week of school.
- Buy a pack of various sizes of smilie face stickers for the Award calendars.
- Run off the "I love my family!" hearts on a variety of colored construction paper.
Print off the "Happy Grams From Your Teacher" and fill them out as soon as you know your students well enough to make a "special" comment about them.-
- Keep the folders in a crate under your desk for easy access.
Run Off "This is your day!" sheets. Keep them and all the other masters in the crate.- As soon as students return their forms and photo, pass out the folders and have them cut and glue their "pieces & parts" together.
Whatever system you use for choosing children, pick a child each day to have your class fill out a "This is your day!" sheet, so you can get these completed the first month of school. - Whenever you pass out certificates or other paper awards, have students put them in their Smile File.
- Periodically choose work that children will put in their Smile File, so you have things to show parents for Parent Teacher conferences.
- If a member of their family comes to help in the class or chaperone, take a photo of them with mom, dad, grama, grampa working with them. They can glue the photo to a sheet of construction paper, write about it and put it in their Smile File.
- It's important to give students a choice of things they want to put in the Smile File. Perhaps they got an "I love you" note from mommy in their lunch box, or a 100% on a spelling test, or were Star Student; you can make copies of things so they can take originals home.
-
At the end of each day, pass out a smilie sticker to anyone who has put a smile on the teacher's face ALL day. In other words, this student has made wise choices (not moved their apple or other behavior management token, or been in the Time Out chair etc.), has completed their work or whatever else you have explained to your students as the guidelines for receiving a sticker. - Children put their smilie face sticker on the appropriate day of the week.
- This Smile File then, can work as a great behavior modification program as well. You can reward students who have gotten a smile for the entire week/month if you want to.
- I've designed monthly certificates for this purpose, which of course they can collect and put in their Smile File!
Have students paperclip certificates so they can stay organized from other things. - If you'd like a writing extension for the calendar, post a list of one-word "happies" that students can choose from, to write on their calendar of what made them smile the most that day.
- I've given you a list of suggestions that you can keep posted.
- You should make one for yourself too! I keep my favorite drawings, cards, "scribbles of love!" and little notes from parents and students in mine.
- Then, when you're having one of those "I feel so unappreciated!" days... you can sneak a peak at your Smile File and feel "paper hugged" The file will help you remember why you became a teacher in the 1st place and hopefully give you a burst of feel-good energy.
I hope this idea brings a smile to your students' faces and helps build their self-esteem. Who knows, maybe someday you'll meet a mom somewhere and they'll tell you their child still has their Smile File! "I am not a teacher, but an awakener." -Robert Frost
"They may not be easy to see, but these are 5 things I want you to know about me!"
That's what the sentence says at the top of the paper.
It's a quick and easy icebreaker for the first day or first week of school, that’s also a terrific writing prompt for September, and fun way to get to know your students.
When completed, they make a cute back to school bulletin board too! Make sure you do one yourself, so you have an example to share with your students, so they know how to do the assignment, as well as get to know their new teacher a little better too.
Older students can draw their own self-portraits in the blank oval. So that they don't feel overwhelmed drawing themselves, remind them that this is just a section of their face from the nose up, or even just their eyes. You can also give students a choice of the other 17 facial tops to fill in and color.
They should color their hair and eyes to represent themselves. I find that younger students are less overwhelmed if they have this sort of template to follow and have a bit more fun with the activity, if they don’t have to start from scratch. You also won’t have to listen to whining: “I can’t draw a face; or “I don’t know how to draw.”
Little ones also tend to draw a tiny circle instead of a big one, or they draw an entire stick body. You can include the template in your “Welcome to school summer letter” or Open House packet, and have students return them on the first day of school, so they can share with their new classmates right away.
Another plus of doing it this way, is that parents can help little ones write down the 5 things. Some teachers like to have an Open House activity that students can do with their families. This would be perfect.
Another option, if you don’t do a summer letter or Open House, is to hand them out the first day of class and have students put them in their backpack or "Take Home" folder, for a home-school connection, to be returned in the next few days.
Make sure you provide time to share their completed projects, so everyone gets to know each other. No matter what my students’ ages, I always had them applaud each child’s sharing. This is a big deal for many “shy” kiddos. Writing in different colored markers also jazzes things up.
If you have the time, turn this into even more of a keepsake, by having a room helper or students trace eachother's handprint on flesh-colored construction paper. Fold it over and cut once for 2 handprints.
Have students glue their paper hands “holding” their writing prompt, in such a way that they can fold the wrist portion over and have them "flop" open to reveal their writing.
You can punch a hole in the top and hang them back-to-back and suspend from the ceiling or line them up as a cute border, just below the ceiling in the hallway.
Click on the link to view/download 5 Things Icebreaker Portraits Thanks for visiting today. Feel free to PIN away!
"By learning, you will teach; by teaching, you will learn." -Latin Proverb
- Back To School Ideas
- icebreakers for the first day of school
- first day of school ideas
- back to school bulletin board ideas
- September bulletin board ideas
- back to school activities
- back to school lessons
- first week of school activities
- first day of school lessons
- september bulletin boards
- activities for the first day of school
- ideas for getting to know you new students
- back to school bulletin boards
