Beginning of the Year Kick Off

[Lisa Constantz]

I'm wondering if anyone has any great beginning of the year team-building, community building activities for their GT kids. I'm old to gifted, but new to elementary so any suggestions would be appreciated. Also, any great ideas for primary kids?

[Cindy Sheets]

A friend gave me a new idea this summer: Art Trading Cards. You use a plain deck of cards, but each student decorates one card. They can be posted, traded, shared, or think of another use? You could adapt this to direct them to say something about themselves they'd like to share.

We've used a similar idea with shoes - get a plain sneaker shaped paper, decorate your own with style. We use to decorate the room as well. Or create a flag to represent you.

Sometimes a quick problem solving activity or skit to get the kids to work together in small groups is good too.

[Nancy Bosch]

We've done wacky camp brochures--I've blogged about it here

[Collette Justesen]

Another fun one is to create a cereal box that is all about the student. It is a fun and creative way to get to know your students. I love to do instant challenges from Imagination Destination to build team skills.

[Sandi Sherman]

This is probably too late for the first day of school, but it's a lesson that works well to set the tone for differentiation and understanding each other. I introduce the Multiple Intelligences using a Mind Map. I ask the students to identify individuals who "stand out because they are so good at something". As the students name individuals, I translate that to one of the intelligences and add that to the Mind Map. After we have indentified the 8 intelligences, the students create a pie chart that illustrates their understanding of themselves in relation to each intelligence. I tell them that we are all capable of using all 8 intelligences, but that we will each have strengths and weaknesses. When we have all the pie charts done and displayed, I ask the students to look at the charts and tell me what conclusions we can draw. I can count on them to see that if we are all different, so the teacher will need to teach differently for some of them. For example, if you are strong at Mathematical Logical thinking, you can probably learn faster and need extensions, while if this is your area of weakness, you may need more repetition and practice. I also use the pie charts to help the students create groups of students with similar and/or different strengths. This helps students begin to think of their classmates in terms of strengths and what they can add to a group.

[Melissae Stiles]

I believe in just silly simple things at the beginning of the year. No joke: We saw how many people we could get on my ratty old couch in my classroom. 22 people! We also made paninis. Keep it fun and light.