Icebreaker Activities for the New School Term

Returning to the classroom after 6 weeks of summer can often be a daunting task for children and teachers alike. Back-to-school activities are a great way of easing both parties back into school life and the classroom environment. They can be beneficial to help children be social and make friends and also adapt back to their setting and feel more confident and ready to learn. In this blog, we will share a handful of different activities that you can try with your little ones on your first few weeks back or indeed whenever you feel like they are needed!

1. Partner Portraits

This is a great way to encourage communication between sets of children. To start with, children will need to pair up – it’s best to pair children that don’t know each other well.

Child 1 will have one minute to interview Child 2 and find out as much as they can in that time. At the end of the minute, Child 1 will then have two minutes to draw a picture of Child 2 showing as many things as possible that they learnt in the interview.

For example, if Child 1 mentioned that they love the rain and the colour purple and have a cat, the picture that Child 2 draws would depict all three of these elements around the drawing of Child 1.

Remember to swap turns after each go and repeat as many times as you like with different partnerships!

2. All about Me snap

A great way for children to introduce themselves is by…introducing themselves. Turning this into a game of snap is a simple yet effective way of taking the pressure off the situation and introducing a little fun into the process.

Ask your children to write some key attributes down on individual pieces of card or paper. Perhaps provide them with set things to answer such as what their favourite colour is, what their favourite food is or if they have a sibling.

Then pair children up and introduce a classic game of snap using the pieces of card or paper that contain the details all about them. As children play they will find similarities and differences between them that will naturally evoke further conversations and will act as a great icebreaker for children to socialise and make friends.

3. Conversation Cubes

Using conversation cubes could be a great way to encourage even the shyest of children to get talking as it takes the pressure out of coming up with talking points and instead provides you with a prompt.

Children can take turns rolling the cubes either in a group or pairs and answering the questions that they are faced with. If you don’t already have the conversation cubes – then these could easily be made using paper or card and adding your own questions.

4. Collaborative Art Project (perhaps a poster on the agreed classroom goals)

The benefits of this activity are two-fold; children will work together to create a piece of art thus building social skills and communication. Children will also work in collaboration with each other and you, the teacher, to mutually establish the classroom goals for the year.

Depending on the size of your class this could be several posters worked on in teams or one big display worked on altogether.

Start by deciding your goals in a group, examples could include “I can listen when others are talking”, “I can ask for help when I need to”. Next you will need to decide how this will be portrayed in art form, with these examples one image could be an ear and the other a question mark. All that’s left to do now is get crafting!

5. STEM collaboration – make a spaghetti and marshmallow tower

This can be a relatively cheap yet incredibly effective activity that will encourage teamwork, problem-solving and communication in your class. Once complete it will also provide your children with a sense of achievement that can be shared with their new classmates.

(You can either do this as a whole class activity or divide the class up into groups depending on the number of children you have.)

You will need:

• Dried sticks of spaghetti
• Marshmallows
• Sticky tape

Rules: The task is straightforward, simply challenge your children to create the tallest tower that they can by using the resources provided.

6. Positive Affirmations

To start the term off on a positive tone – why not encourage your little ones to complete some positive affirmation worksheets? This is a great way for children to self-identify what makes them happy and make them feel motivated to start the day/week/year!

In our free downloads section of the website, you can also find free downloadable worksheets such as:

• “What I want in a friend” cut and stick activity – something that children could complete and compare to establish similarities and differences
• “Random acts of kindness bingo” to encourage a positive and kind classroom environment where children are rewarded for positive behaviour
• “kind and unkind sorting” – an activity to further reinforce positive classroom behaviours

We would love to hear your tips, tricks and icebreaker activities to help children settle and make friends in the new term. Share your ideas with us on social media by using the hashtag #ExploreWithEYR