5 Ways to Get to Know Your New Students

5 Fun Ways to Get to Know Your New Elementary Students

Here are 5 of my favorite, tried and true ways that I use to get to know my new students. Teachers and students alike will love this back to school community building activities!

1. Survey Your Students

I think it’s so important to survey your students during the first week of school! I typically use surveys as morning work and keep them to refer to all year long.

There are tons of free and paid surveys on TPT and elsewhere, but after a few years, I made some tailored to my needs.

The first survey I use is one that asks students about their learning styles and preferences. This helps me make environmental decisions about dimming lights, playing music, and so on.

Another survey that I find to be important is about what holidays students celebrate. I have an amazingly diverse student population, and it is imperative that I am inclusive to all students. For example, I don’t want to do any Halloween activities in my classroom if I have any students that do not celebrate Halloween.

Saving paper? No problem! Editable surveys are available in both print and digital options (Google Forms and Seesaw). See the surveys on TPT here.

2. Have a Snowball Fight!

This back to school activity is always, ALWAYS a hit!

I start off by getting the kids thinking about their summers. “Raise your hand… if you went to the beach! …if you went to the pool! …if you went to a different state! …if you watched TV! …if you read a book! …….. if you had a SNOWBALL FIGHT!” Of course, none of them did, right?

I got the snowball fight idea from another teacher many years ago. Students write 3 facts about themselves on a piece of paper but do not write their names. Then they make “snowballs” by crumpling up the papers. I usually give students the length of one song to have their snowball “fight.” When the song ends, they unroll and read their snowballs aloud one at a time and we try to guess who wrote it.

Have a snowball fight on the first day of school to get to know new students.

3. Play Four Corners

Here’s another game that is always a hit – and you can totally adapt this one to make it work for your needs!

This is a 4 corners game to help students get to know each other. Label your corners 1 – 4 like you would when playing regular four corners. Project one of the questions. Read aloud, then students should move to the corner that corresponds with their answer choices.

This game was created as a back-to-school activity for my classroom. However, it contains no back-to-school or summer-related questions, so you can use it at any time in the year as a brain break or for academic purposes!

Use the questions as discussion prompts to have students work on those speaking and listening skills. You can also analyze the results of each question by comparing/contrasting groups or writing math comparison statements.

Find this game on TPT here.

4. “All About Me” Posters

I buy these posters on Amazon every year and assign them as “homework” during the first week of school.

I display mine first – I wish I had a better picture!

Throughout the year, I display students’ posters for a week or two at a time. During that time, that student gets to be the line leader… just a little something special!

5. Assign Parents “Homework”

Lastly, I give parents some back to school homework, too! I give parents the task of writing (or emailing) me a note about their child. I use the prompt: Tell me about your child in a million words or less.

I’ve been using this free template that I found on TPT, but there are tons of options!

Some parents choose not to complete it, and that’s totally fine, but those who do usually tell me really important stuff about my new students: extracurriculars, family dynamics, fears or worries, strengths and weaknesses, and learning styles. It’s usually super helpful, and parents love when I bring up something they wrote later on, like during conferences.

Bonus Idea:

Back to School News writing activity! Read more about it here.