The first day of term is probably the most difficult day for any teacher but especially so for new teachers. Having been there myself, I decided I would put together a post of some easy first class Ice breakers and activities. This post is for kids and young learners but also includes activities for teens and adults.

Activity Time: 10 minutes +

Materials required: White board and marker.

Skills practiced: Listening, Speaking, question forming and Vocabulary.

Level: Young Learners, Teens

This first activity is simple to set up and take very little preparation time. Its a great way for the students to get to know you.

Method

1. On the board, draw a stick man/woman to represent yourself (Those more artistically gifted can of course make a more interesting creation!)

2. Draw lines coming from your figure. At the ends of these lines, you write numbers, nouns etc that have significance to you.

A rough example of what you should have.

3. The students now take turns in asking questions that these words and numbers may be the answer to. i.e Student: “Have you two brothers or sisters?

Teacher: “Yes, very good. I have two brothers.”

4. Next student asks a question. Only answer if they have guessed the correct question.*

5. Follow up by students doing the same exercise in pairs etc.

*If the question is formed incorrectly, ask the other students to help form it correctly.

Class survey



This can be a great mixer activity and can be used in conjunction with the activity above.



Activity Time: 10 minutes +

Activity type: Group work

Materials required: White board and marker, paper and pencils for each student .

Skills practiced: Listening, Speaking, question forming and Vocabulary.

Level: Young Learners, Teens Method 1. On the board draw up the following grid with information you would like the class to find out about each other.

You can add as many questions as you like. Review last years topics etc.

2. The class copy the grid into their notebooks and begin by filling in the information about themselves.

3. They then go around the class and ask each other the questions and find who in the class has the same information as they do. To extend this activity further, you can get the class to tell you who shares the same information.

This is a great way for the class to get to know each other and for you to get to know the students as well.