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i2i Jan 26th, 2006 10:09 am

First Day Activities
 
Well a new semester is just around the bend for some of us. so let's share some first day activities that you do with classes/students that you are unfamiliar with.

Here's mine:

i have 1 activity that i almost always use the first day of class. it's a great way to get to know your students and for them to get to know you.

First, i write 10 things about myself on the board. I write some easy ones like: 'Bob', '30', 'swimming', etc... And then i write some more obscure ones like: ,'Sage', 'Yes', '8/12/2005', etc...

Then i get the students to guess the question to the answer that is on the board. So they would ask:
whats your name?
how old are you?
whats your hobby?
whats your dog's name?
are you married?
when did you get married?

after they have figured out the question for each answer, it's their turn. they write down 3-5 things about themselves that maybe their classmates don't know. then they come up to the front of the class, i write their info on the board and the class guesses about the student.

its a great activity because you really get to know a lot about your students and they learn a bit about you. plus, its a lot of fun!

what do you do?

little sage Jan 26th, 2006 07:50 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
On the first day of class for classes of about 15 students or less, I like to play the familiar game "snowball sentence".

I ask the person sitting on my right to tell me their name and their hobby.
"Hi, I'm Lucy and I like skiing". Then I say, "This is Lucy and she likes skiing. I'm Karen and I like drawing". And we go around the room, each person introducing everyone who has spoken on their right. Usually I try to WOW them by naming everyone and their hobbies as the last person to take a turn, but sometimes that backfires :o Still, it's very fun.

To get people who have answered early to continue to participate, you can allow students to mime hints to others who are having trouble remembering.

As a follow up you can have students write down either 3-5 sentences following the pattern: "NAME likes HOBBY (ie. Karen like drawing. Lucy likes skiing, etc) or if you're that kind of teacher ;) you can challenge them to remember as many as possible. Perhaps a prize for the winner is in order?

cecille antenorcruz Feb 2nd, 2006 06:31 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
thanks for all the wonderful teaching techniques you've posted! Its such a great help to me. Please continue giving the surfers idea.Cecille Antenorcruz

Manuela Feb 21st, 2006 09:57 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
With children (8 - 12), even with true beginners I like teaching them how to introduce themselves : "I'm Mary"
" I'm Bill" then have them shake hands with me in turn and say "Nice to meet you" "Nice to meet you too". THe whole class helps out the children who are shy.
Then I teach them to clap hands, shake their shoulders, snap their fingers, shake their heads, shout OK, slap their knees, stretch their arms etc when they respond correctly to these orders I sing " If you're happy and you know it" and they just do the actions.
If there are books to hand out I also teach them
"Here you are" Thank you" "Not at all"
So by the end of the first hour they can introduce themselves, offer things,say thank you and respond politely to that and can understand a number of orders that get them familiarised with parts of their bodies.

I liked the two activities listed above in this thread, a lot. Have tried out the
the Snowball thing, didn't know it was called like this. It' s an activity that comes in handy for revising vocabulary learnt so far too.

Bilingualdiva Jun 7th, 2006 09:27 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
Cool... I've never heard of the Jeapordy warmer... will use it soon..
Here are some I use with my high school kids.. works for adults advance class as well.
I ask the students to think of an adjective that describes them using the first or last Initial of their first or last name.. (in case there are any Y's or Z's in there) then studetns volunteer to go around the room and name the person and their adjective
or
I ask students as they walk into the class to cut a piece of string... any length they choose.... once everyone has their piece of string I ask them to say as many things about themselves for every wrap around their little finger ( thumb if it is a big class)
or
I have an assortment of magazine pictures of houses and homes cut out.. as the students come into class I ask them to select a home they would like to live in... on the back of the picture is a number ( the numbers double the house made of straw is #2 and the mansion is #2) when all have pictures I ask them to turn the picture around and find their mate, they must then tell their mate why they chose the house they did and their info ...name age.. etc..... give five or ten minutes (depends on size of class) once they have done this using the number order 1-??? have the pairs introduce each other to the rest of the class....and tell why their partner pick the house they chose...

these are very successful.. it gives the class a feeling of trust and gets them speaking the language or if they are beginners they find ways of comminucating using body language or what ever little bit of the language they might know..
beware... I teach classes of 35 ...when they are this big it takes at least two days to complete the warm up..35 kids 42 minutes....if your teaching time is longer kudos.....:D

jenniferp Jun 21st, 2006 08:36 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
ON my first day, of teaching grade 1 learners, I made a worksheet with an empty picture frame and got them to draw a self portrait. Underneath I'd written basic sentences, "My name is ..............." "I am ........ years old" " I live in ..............." "My teacher is ............"
They got to fill in the relevant information, (with lots of help from me) and draw their picture, (which they mostly love doing) and I managed to learn a bit about each of them (certainly helped with matching names to faces!). I put the pictures on the wall so we had a gallery for each class which helped them to feel it was going to be their space for the term.

xx

stanley Aug 19th, 2006 10:26 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
I am very keen to learn the children's names as fast as possible, but will only see each class once or twice a week. Any ideas for fun ways to learn names quickly? In England, I get children to wear name labels for the first few classes until I know them. I thought I might get my children here to make their own labels - anyone do this? I will also try the soft ball idea - say your own name, then the name of the person you're about to throw the ball to - this can be extended in many ways, eg, say your name and favourite food/country of origin before throwing the ball/toy.

Pix Aug 22nd, 2006 08:17 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
I like to play an interviewing game. Before class, make up a list of characteristics that students are likely to have such as "I live in a house" or "I am an only child". Then add in a few unusual ones such as "I have a pet turtle" or "I have broken more than two bones in my body". Of course, you have to make your statements relevant to your students' level. Then, give each student a sheet and have them walk around the class trying to find classmates who fit the characteristic. The first person to find someone to fit all of the characteristics wins, or get a bonus or whatever you want to do to reward the winner. If it turns out that you cannot fill in all of the characteristics, then you can see who gets the most. Another twist would be that the students cannot put anyone's name on there more than one time.

Here's a post of the first lesson of the term.

simplyesl Aug 25th, 2006 07:26 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
I use this one for children with at least decent English 7+.

It's called sausage. Any question that you, or the students, ask must be answered with 'sausage' as the subject.

For example:
What's your name?
My name is sausage.

This activity always brings a laugh. Try and get your students to think of the best questions that they can.

livinginkorea Aug 26th, 2006 07:15 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
I always use a sponge ball and get the students into a circle (depends on the class size, bigger classes can stay in their seat or break into a few circles if you have space) and then throw the ball around. Have some easy target language for them to practice for example, since it's the first day, "I'm John. What's your name?" Then change it to include the last person's name, "His/her name is _______, my name is John. What's your name?" You can make it more and more interesting by introducing more sponge balls or by having one person to remember all the other names.

It's very simple and never fails for break the ice with the students.

simplyesl Aug 26th, 2006 07:21 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
Hahaha, I just got a beach ball from my school to use in the classroom. The kids go absolutely nuts playing volleysentence. NUTS!

Eric Aug 26th, 2006 06:17 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Quote:

Quote simplyesl
Hahaha, I just got a beach ball from my school to use in the classroom. The kids go absolutely nuts playing volleysentence. NUTS!

How do you play?

simplyesl Aug 26th, 2006 06:37 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
You have two teams and play volleyball. The team that serves the ball asks the question and the team that receives it answers. You can put a time limit on how long they have to ask/answer the question. If they can't ask/answer a question in the time frame or the ball goes out of bounds, then a point is awarded to the other team.

mesmark Aug 26th, 2006 08:31 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
I've seen the same thing done as tennis if you have a ball lying around. Biggest problem is always who is going to answer.

mesmark Aug 26th, 2006 08:33 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
For big classes you can have 2-3 people do an intro every day. Limit to 5 sentences or so. It's a good way to get to know everyone a little better.

For the first day you could do yours (obviously) and then ask for volunteers. There are usually a few brave ones in the class. fter that just do it alphabetically.

livinginkorea Aug 26th, 2006 11:45 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Quote:

Quote mesmark
For big classes you can have 2-3 people do an intro every day. Limit to 5 sentences or so. It's a good way to get to know everyone a little better.

For the first day you could do yours (obviously) and then ask for volunteers. There are usually a few brave ones in the class. fter that just do it alphabetically.

I do that with my elementary students -
- Hello how are you today?
- What day is it today?
- What is today's date?
- What's the weather like?
- What time is it?

For kids I always give some points, which is a great motivational factor!

simplyesl Aug 28th, 2006 12:53 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
To get everyone involved in the Volleyball/tennis:

A team will only get a point once everyone on the team has answered (and therefore asked) a question correctly.

You could even try having a knock out competition with teams of two.

little sage Aug 28th, 2006 06:12 pm

Name Tags
 
Quote:

Quote stanley
I am very keen to learn the children's names as fast as possible, but will only see each class once or twice a week. Any ideas for fun ways to learn names quickly? In England, I get children to wear name labels for the first few classes until I know them. I thought I might get my children here to make their own labels - anyone do this?

Yes, I always do name tags, even with adult classes (though I don't make the adults wear the tags).

I precut paper and fold it, teach the correct romanization of the letters (in Korea, it's the vowels that are killers) and have everyone write their name on the sheet and stand it on their desks. At the end of class for the first few lessons (OK, many lessons) I collect their tags and then use them when I call roll next lesson. I also group the tags into clusters of who sits together and that also gives me a way to remember who's who. With classes of 30+ that meet once a week, it takes some time.

For kids, I let them use colour and maybe draw something on the tag that they really like. Then I have a visual image to go with their name and their face. That helps me remember.

Karen

little sage Aug 28th, 2006 06:21 pm

First Day of Basic Uni Writing Class
 
Hi, a question here.

Does anyone know a good activity for the first day of university age, very basic level composition class? I want to get a writing sample from the students to gauge their skill, but I don't want to be too boring and obvious.

What springs immediately to mind is "Write a few sentences to introduce yourself" or the very cliche "What I did on summer vacation". Can anyone either spruce up these themes or advise me on a more exciting activity?

Thanks in advance.

Karen

stanley Aug 28th, 2006 07:20 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Karen - how about 'Where I would like to be in 10 years' time' or 'My earliest memory' - or perhaps you could write a few options on the board so that the students can choose their own title.
Thanks for the name label ideas. Funnily enough, I'd planned to do it in exactly the way you describe, also taking advantage of the colouring part to practise coulour names- they have to ask me for the colour (of pen) they want initially, then if they want other colours, they have to ask their classmates to swap. (Please may I have the red? Would you like the green?)

simplyesl Aug 28th, 2006 09:32 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
You could try a "true or false" game.

Get each student to write three statements about themselves. Two statements are true, while one is false.
Each student reads their three statements to the class and they (the rest of the class) guess which statement isn't true.

eg:
  1. I have been to five countries.
  2. I haven't driven a car.
  3. I like to eat apples.

One is false.... Which one is it?

livinginkorea Aug 28th, 2006 11:08 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Quote:

Quote simplyesl
You could try a "true or false" game.

Get each student to write three statements about themselves. Two statements are true, while one is false.
Each student reads their three statements to the class and they (the rest of the class) guess which statement isn't true.

eg:
  1. I have been to five countries.
  2. I haven't driven a car.
  3. I like to eat apples.

One is false.... Which one is it?

That's a good one. It could work for any age group. I'm gonna give it a try.

simplyesl Aug 29th, 2006 06:52 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
I just finished a one-off lesson with a student. I had a LOT of time to burn and I came up with the idea to make a cartoon. Take turns drawing and writing dialogue(Q's and A's) for a cartoon. This would only work for 1-1 or small groups, but it's quite fun and can be used in many different situations.

musica Oct 19th, 2006 11:56 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Other ideas could be
My favourite memory is.
I am happy when________. I feel sad when___________

________________is a good friend because . . . . .

musica Oct 19th, 2006 11:58 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
What about creating a simple story using three boxes for the beginning, middle and end. If they are not advanced writers they could draw illustrations with short captions, or write more according to their ability.

marblo Jul 30th, 2007 10:49 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
Hi, my first time here!

One of my first day activities is to have students draw and describe themselves, then hand me their descriptions. I will read them out loud to the rest of the class, and ss have to guess who wrote each description. Then I will show the drawing.
It's fun, especially for groups with new ss since they don't know each other yet.
By the way, I liked the activity where the basics are taught through singing.
Thanks to all of you for the great teaching tips!

I am Dutch, teaching English in Mexico.

Whistleblower Aug 23rd, 2007 09:15 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
Okay, I have 100 new students attending a "Newcomer's Night" at work and guess who the lucky fella is. Yep you guessed it, me.

So, my obvious question is what do I do. My ideas are as follows:

1. Student attends and relaxes.
2. Introduction to the school.
3. "Find someone who" activity.
4. ????
5. ????
6. Music, drink and eating time.
7. Pub and goodbyes.

What do I do during the "????" parts? The night is about 2 hours long so the "Find someone who" activity should last 20~30 minutes. What can I do to make the night span 1 hour then get the students to mingle together at the end of the night?

Any ideas would be great.

nadyawisdom Nov 10th, 2007 01:45 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Hello,
I can recommend a little activity - to make a name necklace. You will need laminated squares of paper with all the necessary letters (approx. 4x4 cm, could be smaller). You can use coloured paper for the letters. It makes the necklace much nicer. At the top of the square with the letter make two holes with a hole puncture. Then use a piece of string to thread the letters through the holes, so that they make up the name of a child. You can do it during the lesson all together. Children can wear this necklace every lesson, so it is easier for you to remember their names!

mar espinoza Jan 23rd, 2008 10:43 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
[QUOTE]little sage[/quote]
Hi, a question here.

Does anyone know a good activity for the first day of university age, very basic level composition class? I want to get a writing sample from the students to gauge their skill, but I don't want to be too boring and obvious.

What springs immediately to mind is "Write a few sentences to introduce yourself" or the very cliche "What I did on summer vacation". Can anyone either spruce up these themes or advise me on a more exciting activity?

Thanks in advance.

Karen


* Well, besides being an Elementary school english teacher, I'm still studying the B.A in ELT.
I remember that in my methodology class, the first day our teacher asked us to take out a sheet of paper. On that piece of paper we had to write very simple things such as:
- name
- hobbies
- what would you like to have in this course that you did not have in the previous one (if any).
- what are your expectations about the course.

If they are in a very basic level, they are still capable of answering these questions; However, they might need you to help them with it. Also, you can write on the board a list of the vocabulary that may be used in order to help them a little bit more.
Hope you find this useful!

cheers!

mar espinoza Jan 23rd, 2008 10:44 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
sorry, i don't know how to quote jijiji

Muriah Jan 25th, 2008 12:29 am

Re: Name Tags
 
Quote:

Quote little sage (Post 3736)
Yes, I always do name tags, even with adult classes (though I don't make the adults wear the tags).

I precut paper and fold it, teach the correct romanization of the letters (in Korea, it's the vowels that are killers) and have everyone write their name on the sheet and stand it on their desks. At the end of class for the first few lessons (OK, many lessons) I collect their tags and then use them when I call roll next lesson. I also group the tags into clusters of who sits together and that also gives me a way to remember who's who. With classes of 30+ that meet once a week, it takes some time.

For kids, I let them use colour and maybe draw something on the tag that they really like. Then I have a visual image to go with their name and their face. That helps me remember.

Karen


I used to have the kids write their names, but I found that especially with the little ones I couldn't read the card from the front of the classroom. I know it sacrifices the chance to have them practice the romanization, but I think it's more important to be able to reliably call them all by name. I print labels of their names off of the computer and let the kids decorate around it. And it works! I have over 400 regular students and I can call almost all of them by name even without the cards, now.

Since I've been at the same school for so long, the only new classes I ever have are incoming first years. I usually do simple games that they know already, like Janken Train, and a circle introduction activity where everyone says "My name is ..."

EngliPatrick Jan 25th, 2008 01:08 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
Quote:

Quote mar espinoza (Post 13393)
sorry, i don't know how to quote jijiji


Under each person's post and to the right is a "Quote" button. Click it and your golden! :)

mar espinoza Jan 27th, 2008 09:32 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Quote:

Quote EngliPatrick (Post 13411)
Under each person's post and to the right is a "Quote" button. Click it and your golden! :)

it worked!
hahaha
thanks!:p

rans Feb 8th, 2008 04:34 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Hello Karen
What about working in pairs?..everyone of the couple try to guess some details about his partner...the more you you could guess...the cleverer you are...they read each others piece of writing after they finish...a little discussion will be nice.
Reema

Micro67 Feb 13th, 2008 05:22 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Learner training is important. Even though sometimes things can get a little repetative, students need to know what to expect. I have a lot of activities that I do 3 or 4 times in the course of a 6 or 8 week class. Knots and crosses seems over simplified, but if you play a a quick game of that before each break for the first few weeks, students will know to expect it. I also like games with a nerf ball. When the student catches the ball they have to come up with an anser quickly, this is good during vocab expansion - 'Name an animal that starts with a .... b ... c ...' etc. It seems simple, but they need to learn that game so that each time it comes up they know what to be thinking about.

Knowing names is hard for teachers, using this to get through the, 'My name is .... what's your name?' is good for learner training and getting me aquainted with the students.

Vickiii_NZ Mar 31st, 2008 05:48 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Hey people - some great ideas. I would like to add my own which has been super successful with 12 year olds and up.

Truth or Lies (I found this on the internet and used it as an introduction game).

Split the class into 3 teams.

You start by giving the class a personal example:

Say your name.
2 statements that are true, 1 that is a lie.

The children have to figure out which statement is a lie.

Which ever team guesses correctly gets 1 point and starts the game.

Each team takes a turn with one person giving 2 true statements and 1 false. The team next to them has the first chance of guessing the lie.

If they guess correctly they get 1 point.
If they are wrong the next team gets to guess. If they are wrong the team that made up the statements gets 2 points.
Keep going round to ensure everyone gets a chance to make up 2 true and 1 untrue statement.

The kids really enjoy it and you will find that the statements get more complex as the game progresses.

Micro67 Mar 31st, 2008 07:12 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
I use a variation of that game that I think is as much fun for me as the students sometimes. I have several objects that I don't think the students will be familiar with (a hockey puck, the face mask from a football helmet, a plum line, etc.) and I break the students into small groups of 6/2. Each student gets a card that has 3 things written on it. Lie, lie and the truth. For the ones that they need to lie on they get 1 point for their team if they can convince the other team that it is not what it really is.

I don't really suggest this for a first day activity (per the thread) but it's good for practicing when to use (for and to) and a few other lessons.

schmilly Sep 5th, 2008 02:34 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
I work with an after school group of english as a second language learners, k-2nd. One of the first day of afterschool activities I like to do is best and worst about school. I do this a couple of time a month actually (sometimes about school sometimes just in general), the answers change as they kids feel more comfortable with me and their peers. Alot of my children have never been asked what they do and don't like, this gives them a voice and helps them feel valued. I can also learn how they feel about things, which helps me understand the best ways to respond to them with their homework. I can also try different approaches to things that they don't like to try to change the way they view them.

isleepwhenican Oct 27th, 2008 10:12 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
Hi. :) I just wanted to thank you for a great idea. I am a Purdue University student majoring in elementary special education. I am currently working with deaf education students who have difficulties understanding question words. I thought this would be a great activity for this class. It did not go as well as planned :o because I did not realize the students did not even understand when to use who instead of where for a question. I would do it differently than I had planned and actually did if I would do this lesson again with these same students. I then took this activity and turned it into a formal lesson plan for another class. Thanks for the great idea. :D If you or anyone would like to see the lesson plan please e-mail me at isleepwhenican@verizon.net

CMarine Aug 6th, 2009 10:12 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
Quote:

Quote stanley (Post 3620)
I am very keen to learn the children's names as fast as possible, but will only see each class once or twice a week. Any ideas for fun ways to learn names quickly? In England, I get children to wear name labels for the first few classes until I know them. I thought I might get my children here to make their own labels - anyone do this? I will also try the soft ball idea - say your own name, then the name of the person you're about to throw the ball to - this can be extended in many ways, eg, say your name and favourite food/country of origin before throwing the ball/toy.

Something you might try is taking pictures of everyone the first day, and attaching them to a folders that you use everyday in class and at home (dialouge journal for example) then on the second day, have the students find the folder with their picture an write their names on them. Now, everytime you pass out the folders, or read the journals (or what ever) you get a refresher.

alawton Aug 8th, 2009 10:32 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
That is a good idea. Between the Spanish and ESL classes I teach each semester I have many students. It takes me a while to remember all of their names. Adults can sometimes be more offended if you forget their names. During the first week of class I walk around with my class roster. I ask questions pertaining to what we are learning. I'll choose a name that I am unfamiliar with to answer the question. Eventually the names stick!

zeynept Aug 14th, 2009 11:38 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
On the first day of the school, I use a puppet and I say "It doesn't know your language so you have to speak English. (They are 5-6 years old.) So they learn how to tell their names.

cjtayl891 Apr 13th, 2010 08:19 am

Re: First Day Activities
 
One activity I've used before is "How good of a liar are you?" Students get a kick out of this because it's not something that they're often asked to do.
What they have to do is come up with three sentences about themselves. Two of them have to be lies and one of them should be a true statement, or vice versa. The object of the game is to try to fool the other students into thinking that the lies are true or that the true things are lies. In order to do this, students might decide to put seemingly normal things down as their lies; i.e. 'I went to the cinema yesterday.' in order to mislead the others into thinking that these are the true statements.
The fun part about it is you end up finding out some pretty unusual things about your students, and they really enjoy it.

jlg53 Mar 8th, 2011 04:03 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
I taught in China for several years and at my last school had 64 grade 1 students.
First, I had the Ss. write their English names on desk cards (many Ss. did not have English names) - send note home to parents etc.

Then I took a picture of each S. holding their name card.

I used the pictures to learn their names, but also for parent interviews - when you have 4 Tom's ....

While I was taking the Ss. pictures, the class was drawing a picture of themselves and printing their English name on a sheet which went up on the classroom wall.

sidewalker Feb 20th, 2017 05:25 pm

Re: First Day Activities
 
One of my favourite activities for older, more advanced learners is to give each student a bunch of cards with different opinions on. If the opinion matches the student's own then they hang on to the card. If they don't agree with it then they must get rid of it by finding a student who does share that opinion and giving them the card. Usually, you get lots of interesting sharing of opinions and students get to know each other a little.

At the end of the class, go around the group and see what opinion cards each student is holding. Lots more discussions will probably spark up along the way.


There's a set of opinion cards on my website which you can download and print.


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