Kick-Start Your Class E-Book

LouAnne Johnson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 334

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

The New York Times bestseller author of Dangerous Minds has a new way to engage students LouAnne Johnson's newest book is a collection of fun and simple educational icebreaker activities that get students excited and engaged from the very first minute of class. These activities are great to use with students at all levels, and many of the activities include variations and modifications for different groups. Research has shown that the use of icebreakers increases student motivation by creating an emotional connection between the student and school. In as little as five minutes, a creative icebreaker can engage students' brains, encourage critical thinking, and much more. * Includes a fun-filled collection of icebreakers that get students thinking and keeps them engaged * Written by LouAnne Johnson, a teacher and acclaimed author of eight books * Contains ideas for promoting creativity, unifying the classroom community, preventing disruptive behavior, and creating positive attitudes towards school and learning No matter what your students' age group this book will give you the tools you need to create a classroom environment that promotes learning.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

More Praise for Kick-Start Your Class

Title page

Copyright page

Acknowledgments

Dedication

About the Author

Introduction

FAST, EFFECTIVE, AND FREE

PART ONE: Getting Personal

Chapter One: Getting to Know You: Introductions

Stress-Free Introductions

1. The Adjective Game

2. Autograph Collectors

3. Are You Kidding?

4. Business Card Creations

5. Flash Figures

6. Getting to Know You

7. I Have to & I Can’t

8. I Never Would Have Guessed

9. Magic Eyes

10. Me in a Bag

11. Do You See What I See?

12. Name Cards

13. Right or Left Brain?

14. Wave Your Flag

15. Stand by Your Music

16. Would You Ever?

Chapter Two: Working Together: Assigning Pairs Partners

Making Sure Nobody Is Left Out

Transition to Tasks

17. Card Sharks

18. Animal Pals

19. Personality Matches

20. Comics Coworkers

21. Pick-a-Stick Partners

22. Puzzle Partners

23. Story Segments

Chapter Three: Body Brain: Kinesthetic Activities

24. Beanbag Topic Toss

25. Birthday Circle

26. Brain Boosters

27. Find Your Folder

28. Keep It Up

29. Hello, Stranger!

30. Make Your Move

31. Meet and Greet

32. Name Game Ball Toss

33. Name Tag Search

34. Shall We Dance?

35. Symbol Search

36. Slow, Fast, Slow

37. Verb Mania

Chapter Four: How We Do Things: Routines Rules

Routines Reduce Behavior Problems

38. Class Chant

39. Call-and-Response

40. Crazy Quiz

41. Cleanup Time

42. Give Me Three

43. Noise-o-Meter

44. My Kind of Class

45. Rules Bingo

46. Seat Scramble Signal

47. We’re Going Reading

48. You & Me Pact

Chapter Five: Teamwork: Building Classroom Communities

Laughter is Good for the Brain and the Heart

49. Find the Teacher

50. Team Classroom Concentration

51. First-Day Feelings

52. Finish the Story

53. Juggling Teams

54. Our Class Puzzle

55. Multi-Balloon Float

56. Paper Turnover

57. Team Trivia

58. Unusual Measures

PART TWO: Sticking to the Subject

Chapter Six: Mathematical Possibilities

59. Balancing Act

60. Count My Fingers

61. Matchstick Puzzles

62. The Number Game

63. People Shapes

64. Rhythm & Words

65. What’s My Number?

Chapter Seven: Scientific Suggestions

66. Critter Connection

67. It’s Elemental

68. Is That a Fact?

69. Mail Call

70. Recycled Animals

71. Tower Builders

72. What Is This?

Chapter Eight: Language Arts Starters

73. Analogy Anchors

74. A Picture Tells a Hundred Words

75. Canine Connection

76. Contraction Cutters

77. Foreign Phrases

78. “I Am” Poems

79. Meaningful Matches

80. Lick a Slug

81. Mirror Writing

82. Musical Words

83. Pictographs

84. Poetry-Picture Match

85. Proofreading Pairs

86. Quotations

87. Six-Word Summaries

88. Wacky Wordies

Chapter Nine: Rev Up the Reading

Online Inspiration

89. Back-to-Back

90. Book Swap

91. Fishing for Sight Words

92. I Can See Clearly Now

93. Three-Story View

Chapter Ten: Social Studies Scenarios

94. City Search

95. Birthday Customs

96. Local Geography Bingo

97. Name That Flag

98. State Silhouettes

99. Our World Map

100. Time Stretchers

101. World View

Chapter Eleven: Techno Tasks

102. Add a Sentence

103. Map Your School

104. Sell a Subject

105. What We Know Slideshow

106. Wordle Teams

Chapter Twelve: Artistic Experiences

Addressing “Art Anxiety”

107. Animal Figurines

108. Artists & Art

109. Head & Shoulders

110. “Me” Collage

111. Partner Silhouettes

112. Newspaper Hats

113. Tinfoil Sculptures

114. Window on My World

Chapter Thirteen: Musical Moments

115. Beats Me

116. Music-Picture Match

117. Musical Moods

118. What Color Is This Song?

119. Song Switch

Chapter Fourteen: Swell Ideas for ELLs

120. Body Parts

121. Let’s Talk

122. Noses to Toes

123. School Shoppers

124. Picture Pairs

125. Take a Note

PART THREE: Forty Ways to Wrap It Up

Chapter Fifteen: What We Learned Today: Daily Closure

1. ABCs

2. Ball Toss Recap

3. Big Banner

4. Board Bingo

5. Cartoon Quotes

6. Connect the Dots

7. Countdown: 3, 2, 1

8. Flash Cards

9. Fractured Phrases

10. Learning Tree or Garden

11. Little Whiteboard Review

12. Missing Words

13. Pair Shares

14. Paper Airplanes

15. Question of the Day

16. Quiz Questions

17. Rate the Lesson

18. Roger Recap

19. Sentence Starters

20. 60-Second Recall

Chapter Sixteen: Recapping the Course: End-of-Term Closure

Crossing Bridges

21. Countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

22. Class Portrait

23. Create a Quiz

24. Dear Me

25. Dear Future Student (or Dear New Kid)

26. Digital Scrapbook

27. Draw & Discuss

28. Famous Quotations

29. I’m the Expert

30. I Used to Think

31. Learning Tips

32. Paper Quilt

33. Scrapbook

34. Self-Assessment

35. Six–Word Memoirs

36. Story Time

37. Twenty Questions

38. Who Wants to Earn an A?

39. Words of Wisdom

40. Write a Book

Appendix

Index

More Praise for Kick-Start Your Class

“This book is a treasure for all professionals—teachers, coaches, administrators—who work with groups and want to set up their time together for success. Kick-Start Your Class is chock full of pragmatic activities to start your classes with both brains and heart. And they’re easy to read and follow! My copy will be a well-worn fixture in my classes and workshops.”

—Dawn Wink, author of Teaching Passionately: What’s Love Got To Do With It?

“An amazing gift for a student or a beginning or seasoned teacher, LouAnne Johnson’s Kick Start Your Class: Academic Icebreakers to Engage Students offers a rich compilation of multi-disciplinary, ready-to-teach classroom starters, concept-builders, and closers that will invigorate the culture and climate of any classroom. This is not a book that will sit on a teacher’s shelf; reaching for this set of lesson gems will quickly become second nature to creative teachers.”

—Pamela Prosise, thirty-year veteran teacher and literacy specialist, McMinnville School District, McMinnville, Oregon

“LouAnne Johnson’s book on student engagement is packed with priceless lessons and activities for today’s teachers. It doesn’t matter whether you work in a regular day class or an after school setting; or whether you’re a first-year intern, an instructional leader, or a life-long teacher, Kick-Start Your Class is a must-have resource for all educators.”

—Jim Vidak, Tulare County Superintendent of Schools, Tulare County, California

“In education, we are always looking for ‘ready resources’. This is a practical resource in an easy-to-use format. Kick-Start Your Class is the new side-by-side for teachers.”

—Shon Joseph, principal, John Tyler High School, Tyler, Texas

“LouAnne Johnson has a unique and effective style in sharing appropriate student-centered strategies. This is a useful guide in every teacher’s daily planning for icebreakers and engaging activities.”

—José A. Santiago Báez, Institución Educativa, Nets, Puerto Rico

Copyright © 2012 by LouAnne Johnson.

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Taken from Kick-Start Your Class: Academic Icebreakers to Engage Students. Copyright © 2012 by LouAnne Johnson.

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Acknowledgments

Kate Gagnon is a splendid editor. Her enthusiasm and support for this book truly made it happen. From our first discussion, when Kick-Start was just a little idea with big potential, she has included me in every conversation from page layout to cover design and I have never felt more respected or valued as a writer. I “flunked” the only art class I ever took, over forty years ago, and since then I have hesitated to show anybody my “art.” Without Kate’s encouragement, I doubt that I would have had the confidence to tackle illustrating an entire book—which turned out to be as much fun as it was hard work. I couldn’t ask for a better editor than Kate—so I won’t.

Also, special thanks to Dimi Berkner and Samantha Rubenstein, who remain ever tactful in the face of my limited (but increasing) technical skills and marketing savvy, and who have taught me how to “blow my own horn” ever so softly, so that I can support their excellent marketing efforts and still remain absolutely charming and incredibly humble.

I could say more about the staff at Jossey-Bass, but in the interest of brevity I will simply say that when other authors ask me, as authors do, if I would recommend J-B as a publisher, I don’t have to consider the question. The answer is yes. (And I’m not just saying that so they will publish my next book. As my Grandma Lauffenberger would say, after a ladylike sniffle, “Don’t offer false praise and flattery, Kitten. It makes you look simple, and it’s just plain tacky.”)

… for all the shy people.

About the Author

LouAnne Johnson is a teacher, author, playwright, and artist who is dedicated to bringing back the joy of learning that children naturally possess before they go to school. While planning the lessons for any class, LouAnne posts her kindergarten photo on the wall above her desk, so she can be reminded every day of what it’s like to be on the other side of the desk—where teachers can ruin your life.

“I believe it’s important to remember that powerless feeling,” she explains, “because it makes me a more compassionate teacher.” LouAnne is best known for her work with the at-risk high school students portrayed in her memoir, My Posse Don’t Do Homework (retitled Dangerous Minds, following the 1995 movie adaptation starring Michelle Pfeiffer). But during the past twenty-five years, LouAnne has also taught AP high school students, adult and high school remedial readers, struggling elementary readers, adult ESL students, honors-level freshman composition students, adult developmental readers and writers, university technical writing and literature students, and teacher candidates.

“One of the most important lessons my students have taught me over the years is not to take teaching so personally,” says LouAnne. “Teaching is not about me. For example, it may suit me to tell students to find partners, interview them, and introduce them to classmates. But for many students, that activity is a nightmare. They find it very stressful to approach strangers, they get left out of the choosing and feel ostracized, they dread having to speak in front of the class. That’s why it’s so important for teachers to design student-centered, student-friendly activities that create a welcoming, nonthreatening environment on the first days of class. If we want students to come to school, we must make school a place they want to be, especially that first day. We will have plenty of time later to scare our students, if that’s the approach we feel we need to take.”

LouAnne devotes an entire chapter (“Start with a Smile”) to creating the best possible first day of school in her book Teaching Outside the Box: How to Grab Your Students By Their Brains, because she truly believes that the first minutes of class set the tone for the rest of the term. The highlight of the first day is the academic icebreaker—such as those suggested in this new book.

LouAnne’s educational degrees include a BS in psychology, an MAT in English, and a doctorate in educational leadership. She is a former U.S. Navy journalist, Marine Corps officer, ballroom dance instructor, and news syndicate editor. She has written several books about education, a number of poems and op-ed columns, and many plays, including the one-person monologue based on her award-winning young adult novel, Muchacho.

She maintains a website with a monthly blog and direct links to resources for teachers at www.louannejohnson.com. LouAnne also has a website devoted to ideas and resources for the first days of school at www.KickStartYourClass.com.

Introduction

FAST, EFFECTIVE, AND FREE

Instructors, coaches, workshop leaders, even preachers use icebreakers—because they work. They put people at ease, create positive brain chemicals, generate enthusiasm, promote interpersonal bonding, create positive emotions, and engage the brain.

Icebreakers are a perfect teaching tool. In just five to fifteen minutes, a properly planned academic icebreaker can:

→ Engage students mentally and emotionally

→ Reduce student anxiety

→ Encourage critical thinking

→ Create a unified classroom community

→ Establish positive teacher-student rapport

→ Bridge economic, social, and cultural boundaries

→ Introduce an academic subject

→ Establish the teacher’s authority

→ Promote cooperative behavior

→ Set the emotional “climate” of the classroom

→ Create positive attitudes toward school and learning

… and all this while students are having fun!

Time is critical, especially in today’s classroom, but icebreakers are worth the time spent because the payback is huge. Any veteran teacher will tell you that the first few minutes of the first day of class are critical—the better those first few minutes, the better the rest of the year. This notion isn’t simply anecdotal or logical. It’s biological.

The human brain is wired to seek novelty (scientists believe this is a carryover from our ancestors, who had to stay alert for any new danger in order to survive). Regardless of the age or ability of students, their brains all operate in the same way. They seek connections to previously stored information and constantly search for personal meaning. Icebreakers can help younger students create those mental connections between old and new information and experiences. And they help students of all ages create positive personal connections associated with learning.

Emotional memories are stored, just as knowledge and skills are stored, in our long-term memories and can be triggered by current events and experiences. In his book How the Brain Learns (Corwin Press, 2001), author David Sousa explains that the amygdala (the emotional control center of the brain) links emotional memory to cognitive memory. When students retrieve academic information, their emotional memories are also retrieved. So it makes sense that creating positive emotional memories associated with school may, over time, supplant previous negative memories and improve students’ attitudes and behavior. Of course, it takes more than one positive experience to replace a series of negative ones, but every experience counts.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD ACADEMIC ICEBREAKER?

First, a good classroom icebreaker has a purpose aside from entertaining students. Simply providing paper and markers and allowing students to doodle, for example, may keep them occupied, but unless you are teaching an art therapy class, that time could be better spent achieving an objective such as learning students’ names or creating work teams for future classroom projects and lessons. A good academic icebreaker also meets the following criteria:

→ Can be completed successfully in five to fifteen minutes

→ Involves and engages every student in the class

→ Avoids putting shy students “on the spot”

→ Respects cultural and gender issues

→ Fosters community rather than competition

→ Is ungraded but valued by the teacher

→ Focuses on personalities—not grades or IQs

There is another important factor to consider when choosing first-day activities for the classroom: students are not adults or confident salespeople or corporate conference attendees seeking opportunities to network. The younger they are, the more worried students may be about starting a new school term or meeting new classmates. Good first-day activities do not create more anxiety; they create nonthreatening opportunities for students to share and explore.

ICEBREAKERS CAN INSPIRE LEARNING

Occasionally, students will become so involved in a specific project that you may choose to let them continue for a longer period than you had planned—which follows Maria Montessori’s theory that when student learning is taking place, we shouldn’t interrupt that learning to suit the teacher’s needs. And effective icebreakers can be used as the first step in longer, more complicated projects. Consider the following examples.

High school students can draw self-portraits and post them on a bulletin board to create a classroom community. Later in the week, these same portraits can be used for a variety of purposes: shuffle them and deal them out in pairs or threes to create work groups. Or give all the portraits to a volunteer and see if he or she can correctly identify each classmate by handing the portraits to their proper creators. The portraits can then be used as a springboard for research into the cultures and ancestors of students in the class, an exploration of folk art, or a basis for research into world history with emphasis on the native countries of students’ ancestors.

Elementary students can create paper quilt squares during the morning and then take a minute to share and discuss their squares with classmates. Later, they can string or tape their squares together to create a classroom quilt. And in following days, they can draw or use picture cutouts to create a variety of quilts for a variety of topics: colors in the rainbow, numbers, spelling words, pets, wild animals, plants, and so on.

CREATE AN ATTENTION GETTER

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received as a beginning teacher was, “Never yell at students to get their attention or cooperation. It’s like trying to teach a pig to sing. It irritates the pig, it makes you look foolish, and it doesn’t work.” So I tried other techniques. I slapped my ruler against my desk, cleared my throat, circulated the room and used body language to intimidate students into silence. I used those techniques for years and they worked. Sometimes. Then I happened upon a videotape of an elementary teacher from England who used a rainstick to capture his students’ attention. Not only did the soothing sound get the students’ attention, it made them smile. The following day, I went out and bought a rainstick and I have used it for every class, every age, every ability level, with the same positive results: students like it, I maintain my dignity, and it works.

Rainsticks are South American musical instruments made from a length of cactus that has been dried and coated with shellac. The thorns of the cactus have been turned around so they protrude inside and the hollow stick is partially filled with pebbles that sound like raindrops as they fall when the stick is inverted. This website shows how to make an inexpensive rainstick-style device: http://www.exploratorium.edu/frogs/rain_stick/index.html.

What Should You Use?

Your Attention Getter should suit your personality and those of your students. Experiment with noises and musical sounds until you find one that creates an attention-getting sound loud enough to be heard above normal conversation but not loud enough to startle students. Whistles and buzzers work well in a gymnasium, but they can be irritating in a classroom and defeat the purpose of using the sound to request students’ calm, quiet attention.

Some good examples of gentle noisemakers include chimes, maracas, a string of tiny bells, five to ten seconds of a song, a tambourine, a wooden frog that “croaks” when a wooden mallet is rubbed across the ridges on its back, a pair of drumsticks, or wooden spoons. Or create your own “music” using objects in your classroom.

Introducing Your Attention Getter

The first time you use your device or signal, let it demonstrate its effectiveness before you say anything about it. Choose a time when students are chatting to each other, such as at the start of class, or when they are working independently and quietly talking to each other. If you are using a signal such as one hand in the air, raise it and wait until students notice. Give them a nonverbal signal that you would like them to raise their hands. When they do, acknowledge them one by one, with a “thank you.” If you chose a sound signal, make the sound and wait. Repeat if necessary until everybody is quiet and looking at you. Thank them.

Next, explain that nobody likes wasting their time, and no one really likes it when people raise their voices at us and order us around, even if they state the order as a request such as “Please be quiet.” So you will be using a signal or sound to indicate that you need everybody’s quiet, calm attention because you have something you want them all to hear. Thank them again for their cooperation and immediately transition to a lesson or activity.

Be sure to use your Attention Getter a few times on the day that you introduce it, so that it becomes a habit for students to stop talking and pay attention. But be sure that when you do request their attention, you have something to tell them. Don’t simply ask them to be quiet just to find out if your signal works. Give additional instructions about the current activity, present a new activity, explain a homework assignment or classroom procedure, or let them know how long they have to complete their current task.

Attention-getting sounds and signals are good examples of using behaviorism in a positive way. Students quickly develop the habit of stopping to pay attention when they hear or see the signal. This does not mean you are teaching them to mindlessly obey orders. Rather, it is a mindful exercise. Without speaking, you are saying, “Please listen to me,” and students are responding with a nonverbal, “We are listening.”

Most teachers continue using the same attention getter with good results, but sometimes teachers (or students) prefer variety. In that case, choose and introduce your new sound or signal just as you did the original one—use it first and then explain. Also, you might consider inviting students to suggest hand or sound signals. If you try one that doesn’t work well, don’t simply abandon it. Make its failure a topic of class discussion: Why didn’t that signal work? Can we tweak it to make it more effective? What could we use instead? This discussion will encourage your students to engage in self-reflection about their own behavior and learning—as the result of a mistake! That’s good teaching.

HOW THIS BOOK WAS BORN

The most popular assignment in my Effective Teaching courses is the First-Day Activity Demonstration. Using fellow classmates as “students,” each future teacher leads us through a quick and easy activity (five to fifteen minutes) designed for a specific grade level and/or subject. In addition to being enjoyable and engaging, the activity has to have some academic purpose such as teaching classroom routines, assessing student attitudes toward an academic subject, or introducing students to each other. This assignment provides valuable practice for new teachers: designing a brief lesson plan, greeting a new class, giving instructions, distributing materials, and practicing classroom management skills such as managing time, monitoring behavior, and motivating students.

As each new group of future teachers works on this assignment, we search for suitable activities online and in textbooks. Although an Internet search yields many sources of free icebreakers, most of them are not really suitable for classroom use. The activities may be enjoyable, but they usually lack any real purpose and often require elaborate materials or more time and money than teachers can spare. Often the instructions are complicated or confusing.

So we turn to the teacher’s best resource: other people. We ask our friends and families and students and colleagues to share their experiences as students on the first day of school. And we reflect upon our own experiences as elementary, secondary, and college students. We discuss and analyze the activities we especially enjoyed, as well as those we definitely would not want to repeat. We ask ourselves: What made those activities enjoyable or terrible? How can we improve them or modify them to suit a different age or ability level? And then we design our own first-day activities.

Because class after class of my students has such a difficult time finding really good opening activities, I created this collection of first-day activities specifically for teachers. I call them academic icebreakers because every activity included here has a specific purpose and relevance for classroom teachers. They use minimal materials, involve every single student, and are designed to be completed quickly and easily. Every activity included in this collection can be modified to suit a variety of student ages and ability levels.The activity format (consisting of teacher preparation steps followed by specific instructions for students and possible variations) was suggested by my own students—beginning teachers who often struggle to frame clear and effective instructions. “Please give us a script,” they said, “so we can just pick a page and do the activity.”

Part One of this book presents activities that contribute to an effective classroom: assigning work partners, getting acquainted, learning while moving, and so on. The activities in Part Two are grouped by subject area: math, science, language arts, reading, social studies, technology, arts, music, and English language learners (ELLs). The forty closure activities offered in Part Three—twenty daily and twenty end-of-course activities—are meant to provide templates for teachers who want to wrap up their classes on a positive note and inspire their students to continue thinking about what they have learned.

Many of the activities here were created for my own students. Some are updates of old standards from my school experiences from the 1950s, but most icebreakers are like recipes that pass from person to person by word of mouth, each teacher adding his or her own special ingredients. When somebody mentions an icebreaker, other people usually respond, “Oh, I know that one, except we did it a little differently …”

Surely the activities in this book will be improved and revised and passed on, because teachers are eager to share their successful strategies. It’s one of the things I love most about teachers—their generosity. After you test these activities and tweak them, edit them, and adapt them for your particular student population, please share them with your colleagues, post them online, and pass them on. Keep that generosity alive.

PART ONEGetting Personal

Creating a Positive State

According to brain scientists, research suggests a phenomenon called “state-dependent learning,” meaning that the learning environment plays a key role in the retrieval of previously learned information and skills. Examples of this phenomenon are the way we tend to recall distinct memories from years past whenever we hear a particular song or smell—Elvis singing “Love Me Tender” or the unmistakable aroma of Grandma’s homemade cinnamon-pecan buns.

Classroom icebreakers can take advantage of this human tendency to relate memory and emotion by creating positive emotions through enjoyable activities at the start of a new course or school year. In this part of the book, you’ll find activities that focus on students as people and members of a learning community. The goal of these activities is to get acquainted with your students and give them an opportunity to learn a bit about you and their classmates via fun and engaging activities that are not physically or emotionally threatening.

Since our goal on day one is to create a welcoming classroom environment and generate positive feelings about our academic subjects so students will look forward to returning for day two, our ideal icebreakers will be specifically designed to reduce potential anxiety or negative stress for students, including newcomers or shy souls.

After your students have had time to bond with you and with each other, they may welcome activities that ask them to stretch their boundaries, tackle tougher challenges, and take more risks. But for the present, the activities in these first five chapters provide the maximum amount of enjoyment and the least amount of emotional risk.

Chapter One, Getting to Know You: Introductions, outlines activities that give teachers and students a chance to get acquainted and share a bit about themselves.

Chapter Two, Working Together: Assigning Pairs & Partners, provides quick and easy activities for randomly assigning pairs or teams. Random assignment avoids the hurt feelings and conflicts that can occur when students self-select their partners. These activities make a good lead-in to partner projects and tasks.

Chapter Three, Body & Brain: Kinesthetic Activities, focuses on activities that incorporate movement. They are a good way to expend excess energy and channel it in a positive direction, as well as serving as good pick-me-ups for the brain.

Chapter Four, How We Do Things: Routines & Rules, includes enjoyable ways to present rules and teach procedures.

Chapter Five, Teamwork: Building Classroom Communities, includes activities that promote community building and student bonding that can improve behavior, motivation, and achievement.

Working with “Hard-Core” Students

Sometimes teachers who work with reluctant learners or other challenging student populations are hesitant to use icebreakers. “What if nobody participates?” one teacher asked me. “Then I will look like a fool and I’ll totally lose whatever authority I had managed to establish up to that point.”

That teacher’s question is valid. Some groups of students are much more difficult to motivate and manage than others. But it can be done. The key is to keep in mind the needs of your students. At-risk or underachieving students often have serious self-esteem problems. Their number-one priority is to maintain their “cool” reputations or to avoid becoming vulnerable in front of their peers. They need to feel emotionally safe and protected. So asking them to participate in a round-robin exchange may not be the best choice. You may be surprised at their willingness to participate, however, if you select an activity that is interesting, mentally intriguing, and does not put individual students in the spotlight or ask them to reveal personal information about themselves.

I have used many of the activities in this book with hard-core at-risk students in three different states with good success. The icebreakers that worked best for those groups include I Have to & I Can’t, Magic Eyes, Do You See What I See?, and Right or Left Brain? from Chapter One; Puzzle Partners from Chapter Two; My Kind of Class and You & Me Pact from Chapter Four; and Find the Teacher, First-Day Feelings, Paper Turnover, and Unusual Measures from Chapter Five.

Don’t underestimate your “tough audiences.” It’s hard work to maintain an apathetic front and pretend that you don’t care about anything in the world. Given the chance to participate without losing face, most students will give it a try. They may still insist that they don’t care and that they aren’t having fun, but as long as they are participating or not disrupting the activity, they’re connecting. (And whatever you do, don’t point out that they are cooperating or enjoying themselves! They might decide to stop.)

Don’t Forget Your Attention Getter

If you haven’t yet read the Introduction, you might want to check out the section titled “Create an Attention Getter.” These signals let students know you need everybody’s quiet attention or that a specific period of time has passed without having to raise your voice or waste precious time. Attention Getters are especially useful during icebreakers or other activities that students become so engaged in and excited about that they lose track of time.

Chapter One

Getting to Know You: Introductions

We’ve all been there: the teacher tells us to pair off, interview our partners, then introduce them to the class. And we do it.

Some of us enjoy the activity. But many of us, given the choice, would prefer to be somewhere else, doing something else, something less stressful and more enjoyable—having a root canal at the dentist, for example. Perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but only a slight one. Shy people, quiet people, listeners, and introverts often find the prospect of physical pain less threatening than the potential embarrassment and humiliation that may result from speaking in front of a group of strangers or peers. Adults have options. We can escape to the restroom, fake an emergency phone call, or simply get up and leave when we feel too uncomfortable. Typically, students don’t have those options. They are stuck. They have to disrupt the class or defy the teacher in order to avoid participating in unappealing activities. So they stay and participate. But being physically present in the classroom with us doesn’t mean they are “with us.” Mentally, they may be far, far away.

Stress-Free Introductions

The academic icebreakers in this chapter are designed to engage students, make them feel welcome, and allow them to mingle and interact in a nonthreatening, nonstressful environment.

Students feel self-conscious for so many reasons: their height, weight, acne, scars, accents, speech impediments, “ ‘bad” hair, lack of friends, fear of bullies, “uncool” clothes or shoes, body or facial hair, physical discomfort caused by raging adolescent hormones, or past experiences with racial or cultural or religious prejudices.

Many teachers sincerely believe that students need to learn to speak comfortably in public. That may or may not be true, but forcing shy or self-conscious students to stand up and speak during the first moments of a new class is not likely to help them develop confidence or comfort; it’s much more likely to make them withdraw even more. It may make them wish fervently that they were any place other than school. Definitely not our goal for the first day of class.

It’s very simple to research this topic: simply ask the adults you know to recall their first days of school. Ask how they felt about being required to stand up and speak in front of their peers. Most of them will remember very well—and their memories may help you design effective and enjoyable icebreakers for your own students.

1. THE ADJECTIVE GAME

PURPOSE: getting acquainted      AGES: 7–adult

TIME: 10–30 minutes

MATERIALS: dictionary (optional)

PREPARATION

Create a list of adjectives that might be used to describe students (happy, energetic, worried, musical, lovable, talkative, quiet, sleepy, and so on). Post your list on the board or project it on a screen where students can see it.

Place chairs or desks in a circle, semicircle, or some other arrangement where everybody will be able to see each other.

Option for teachers who enjoy using humor: Stand by the door to your room and greet students as they enter. Use various adjectives to describe yourself. For example, “Hello, I’m Mr. Dexter and I am delighted to see you.” “Welcome to my classroom. I’m Ms. Takada and I’m thrilled to see so many interesting people joining our class today.” Students may laugh at you, but laughter is a good thing.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR STUDENTS

1. Take a few seconds to think of an adjective that describes you today. You might be excited or hungry, for example. This isn’t a test and you aren’t stuck with this adjective forever. It’s just for the purpose of getting acquainted. I have posted a list of adjectives for those of you who would like help getting started.

2. I’ll start by introducing myself and giving an adjective that describes me. Then we’ll go around the room. When it’s your turn, your mission is to repeat all the names and adjectives of the people who went ahead of you. If you get stuck, we will help.

3. Just for fun, you may choose an alliterative adjective—one that begins with the same letter or sound as your first name—such as Musical Malik or Jumpy George.

4. After we have completed a full circuit, I’ll ask for volunteers to see if anybody can remember every name and adjective. [Skip this step if time is an issue.]

FOLLOW-UP

On the second day of class, ask for volunteer(s) to try and identify all their classmates by name and/or adjective. Or give students a 5–10-minute “quiz” to see how many names they can remember. This is a challenge if they are seated in different places than they were on the first day. Give volunteers—or the class—a round of applause.

Take note of the people who remember all or most of the names. Those students exhibit strong interpersonal intelligence, a key factor in academic, professional, and personal success, according to many researchers. They may be good team leaders or student mentors.

2. AUTOGRAPH COLLECTORS

PURPOSE: getting acquainted      AGES: 7–adult

TIME: 10–30 minutes, depending on number and age of students

MATERIALS: custom templates (see Preparation below) and colored pencils

PREPARATION

Create a template that lists the names of all the students in your class in a column on the left-hand side of the page. Add your name to the list (this will require each student to talk to you individually, which will give you a chance to meet them in a nonthreatening circumstance).

Mix up the order, so the names are not listed alphabetically. Remove any personal information such as ID numbers, phone numbers, birth dates, and so on. To the right of each name, draw two blank lines that students will fill in during the activity.

Greet students as they enter the classroom and hand each student a copy of the template and a pencil. Ask them to be seated and wait for everybody to arrive. Do not tell them your name. They will need to find out when they begin the activity.

Prepare your Attention Getter (see the Introduction for details).

INSTRUCTIONS FOR STUDENTS

1. You have a list of all the names of the students in this class. My name is also included.

2. Your job is to identify each person on the list and ask him or her to sign on the first blank beside his or her names.

3. On the second blank, ask the person to write their favorite after-school snack.

4. You will have ____ minutes to locate all the people and collect their autographs and information.

5. The pencils are yours to keep as my welcome gift.

6. This will be the signal that time is up. [Demonstrate your Attention Getter.] I’ll use this signal whenever I need your quiet attention. Ready? Begin.

FOLLOW-UP