4 Getting to Know You Activities for High School Teachers

We’ve shared before that we are not fans of icebreakers here at Three Heads. We do them, especially during the first week of school, because we recognize their importance, but it’s not something we can say we look forward to each year.

But getting to know you activities that students complete as the first assignment of the year? We’re definitely fans of those.

We genuinely like meeting a new batch of students and learning more about them. Getting to know you activities are an essential part of our back-to-school routine: they help us match names to faces, they give us an opportunity to assess where our new group of students stands academically, and they provide an opportunity to start building a relationship with students, especially when we write a thoughtful comment or two in response to their getting to know you activities.

And getting to know you activities allow us to do these things without the awkwardness of having to be vulnerable in front of 40 other teenagers, whether it’s by sharing something personal or playing a game. Students can share what they choose to share with the safety of knowing that we, their teachers, are the only ones who will read it.

We’ve cycled through different getting to know you activities over the years, and they’ve all worked well, so we thought we’d share them here in the hopes that you find one that sounds like the perfect fit for you and your students.

4 Effective Getting to Know You Activities to Assign in Week One

#1 “My Reading Experience” Letter

One of our coworkers devoted much of the first grading period to building a culture of reading in her classroom. The decor was Harry Potter-themed, students made trips to the library, and book clubs made up a substantial part of the weekly activities. For the first day of school, this teacher asked students to write a letter about their past experiences with reading: do they love it or hate it? What are their earliest reading memories? What are some titles they have loved?

This wasn’t an approach that worked particularly well for us—we taught below-grade-level sophomores who would have had very little to say in response to a prompt about their experience with reading, and while it was part of our curriculum, independent reading didn’t play the same central role in our classroom. (And while this would likely work much better in an AP Literature class, we preferred not to know from Day 1 that our students hate reading. That information does reveal itself eventually, but we like to keep our spirits high and our delusions grand for the first week of school!)

But if you have students with a wider range of reading experiences and creating a reading culture is a top priority for you, this can be a great way to start your year.

#2 An MLA-Formatted “About Me” Paragraph

Many teachers start with some form of letter to the teacher, and for many years, we used this approach as part of a first week of school lesson on how to correctly format writing assignments in MLA style. 

We walked students through how to set up a document in MLA style and how to use Turnitin.com. Then, they wrote a brief introduction about themselves, formatted it correctly, and submitted it to Turnitin. We weren’t concerned about plagiarism, but it was a way to ensure that every student had created an account and knew how to use the website.

While not the most exciting way to spend the first week of school, it was a way to ease into learning with a simple assignment, set expectations for the year, and take care of basic administrative tasks. For a formatting assignment, students needed something to write about, so we used it as our chance to get to know them.

We had a simple rubric for the MLA formatting guidelines, and then we made a point of writing a comment or two back to students about the personal information they shared. We also put the assignment into the writing category of their grade, so it was a nice boost at the beginning of the year.

In our experience, students don’t do well with open-ended prompts like, “Write a letter introducing yourself,” so we provided some simple questions for them to answer in their paragraph.

In case you’re wondering, these were the MLA formatting requirements we graded them on:

• Margins are set to 1”.
• Writing is double-spaced.
• Writing is in 12-point Times New Roman font. (MLA has since widened the font requirement to “a legible font.”)
• There is no additional bolding, italicizing, or underlining (except for the summer reading title).
• There is a left-justified heading at the top of the page, including the student’s name, the teacher’s name, the course name, and the date in DD Month YYYY format.
• There is a centered title, and the rest of the writing is left-justified.
• The paragraph has been indented using the Tab key.
• There are no spelling or grammar errors (part of the lesson included how to use spell check).
• The response is 200–300 words (part of the lesson included how to check a word count).

#3 A Personal Quilt Square and “I Am . . .” Poem

Why on earth did we start with a quilt square? Good question.

One of the stories in our sophomore textbook was Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” in which quilts feature prominently. This was not a story that our students ever connected with, so one year we decided to teach them a little bit about quilts and then have them make their own quilt square (out of paper) as a way to engage with the story.

Our students still struggled to connect with the story, and we eventually replaced it with something else, but the quilt square assignment was fun (and it was a huge pain to create the materials for, so we wanted to get good use out of it). It became one of our getting to know you activities in the first week of school, and we liked that it gave students the opportunity to be creative while also serving as an exercise in following directions.

Because it was supposed to mimic a quilt square, in which individual pieces of fabric are stitched together, students designed seven “fabrics” and then cut pieces out of them that they glued onto a Lone Star quilt template.

For our seven “fabrics,” we had students design them to tell something about each of the following:

• Who I Was as a Child
• Who I Am with My Family
• Who I Am When I’m Alone
• Who I Am with My Friends
• Who I Am at School
• What I Believe
• Who I Want to Be

We also had them write an “I Am” poem (essentially, seven lines beginning with the words “I am . . .” that answered the seven prompts above) so that we would understand why they designed their quilt squares the way they did.

While it was a sort of strange and overcomplicated activity, students enjoyed it, and the results were really neat to see: we displayed them on our bulletin boards for Back to School Night (and then left them all year because changing bulletin boards wasn’t our thing).

Does this sound like your jam? Email us at [email protected], and we’d be delighted to send you the materials!

#4 “About Me” Worksheet or Google Slides

After a while, we decided to go with a simpler getting to know you activity, so Kate designed us an About Me worksheet (that later evolved to a Google Slide) that allowed students to share information about themselves in a visually appealing, low-stakes format.

It was a simple credit-no credit assignment, but we made a point of writing a comment or two about what the student had shared.
While the activity went through several iterations, these are the elements we always included:

Name and nickname

• Sometimes we used a sentence frame like “Hi, my name is _________, and I go by _________” or “My name is _________. People call me _________.”
• Obviously the name part is important, but it gives students space to tell us if they prefer to go by something other than their given name, and it allows them to do so privately if they aren’t comfortable doing so in front of the entire class when we take attendance.

School Appropriate Photo or Drawing of Yourself

• Most students enjoy sharing a photo, especially once we made this a digital assignment, but the purpose here is to help us match names to faces.

3 Adjectives to Describe Me

• Sometimes we break this up into “3 Words Family Would Use to Describe Me” and “3 Words Friends Would Use to Describe Me.” Other years, we leave it general, but it’s a good way to get to know students.
• We recommend providing a list of adjectives with positive connotations for students who feel stuck (or, perhaps, don’t have a lot of practice describing themselves).

On a scale of 1–10, how much are you looking forward to school this year?

• We’ve also phrased this as “how excited I am for this class” and “how did you feel about school last year,” but this gives us an indication of the level of engagement and motivation we’re starting with.

You should know this about me

• Sometimes we phrase this as “The most important thing to know about me is . . .” or “Want to get to know me? You better know this”).
• The value of this somewhat vague phrasing is that it gives room for students to share a fun fact if that is important to them or to share something more serious or personal that students want us to know but, perhaps, feel uncomfortable sharing face-to-face.

When I feel happy, I usually . . . / When I feel stressed out, I usually . . .

• Primarily, this is just another way to get to know something about students, but it is helpful to get a sense of how students tend to act when they’re stressed out. If you remember it, knowing this can help you de-escalate classroom management situations down the road.

I can’t live without . . . / I could easily give up . . .

• We aimed for questions that most students would have something to say for, and this is a winner that gets us some interesting answers!

My #1 goal for this school year is . . .

• Leaving this vague allows students to set a goal for our class, their school year, or their personal lives. Whatever they choose, it tells us something about them.

While these are the ones that stuck (and that you’ll find in our All About Me Worksheet template), these are some other ones we’ve included over the years:

• My homework soundtrack is . . .
• As a student, I have been most successful when . . .
  • We’ve also phrased this as “What makes a good teacher” and “What has helped me succeed academically in previous classes is . . . “
• Favorites: Book, movie, food, day of the week, game, subject, form of media, place on earth
• For freshmen: The part of high school I am most looking forward to is . . . / The part of high school I am most worried about is . . .
• One question I have is . . .
  • This allowed students to ask questions about the class or just give us insight into the kinds of things they wonder about.
• My “default” doodle (what I generally draw when I’m bored in class)
• A job I would never have / A job I would love to have
• The best day of my life was . . . 

One year, we included a “Lightning Round Get to Know You” on the back. Students highlighted their choice in a series of “This or That?” questions (we acknowledge these may need to be updated based on what’s “cool” whatever week you’re reading this!):

• Inside or outside
• McDonald’s or In-n-Out
• Android or iPhone
• Hulu or Netflix
• Night Owl or Early Bird
• Sweet or Salty
• Disney+ or YouTube
• Instagram or TikTok
• Xbox or Playstation
• Pancakes or Waffles

We’ve also included an occasional list of statements and just asked students to highlight (or check) all that apply. This is particularly helpful for those students who struggle to come up with anything to say (and most of them applied to one or both of us so that if we were struggling to connect with a student, we could say, “Me too!” or “Oh, that sounds just like my friend”).

• I am always late.
• I am the oldest child.
• I like math and science more than English and history.
• I am left-handed.
• I play a musical instrument.
• I spend more time playing video games than anything else.
• I can solve a Rubik’s Cube.
• I would run for president.
• I’m a morning person.
• I’m secretly a superhero.
• I have a fear of public speaking.
• I usually forget to charge my Chromebook.

Getting to know you activities are an essential part of the back-to-school experience, allowing you to learn your students names, gain some insights into their personalities and needs, and start building relationships by writing a comment in response. Even if you hate traditional icebreakers, these assignments are low-stakes, creative assignments that work well during the first week of school. 

Our All About Me Worksheet is already designed and ready for you to assign to students. You can also purchase it in a First Week of School bundle that includes a daily agenda Google Slides template, an infographic-style syllabus template, our bestselling Pixar theme activity, and a “This or That” icebreaker for the first day.