first day of school |

ReadWriteThink is a cool website providing educators with language teaching materials. We can ask our students to introduce themselves by writing their acrostic poems. What they need to do is to use the letters of their names to start each line.

This tool enables our students to brainstorm on the topic -themselves- first.

Then, they are provided with some hint words to begin their lines. Completing their acrostic poems, they can save and share them with you through email.

We can either introduce it in class and ask our students to write their acrostic poems as homework and bring the hardcopy to the class or have them write their poems in class and share with us. At the end of the process, sharing poems in class would give us the opportunity to get to know our students with more details while they realize their creative potential within themselves.

This is a community-building activity called “puzzle art” that can be implemented on the first day of school. It involves each student drawing something about themselves on a puzzle piece, then standing up to introduce themselves to the class by explaining the symbols on their piece, which helps to build a positive and inclusive classroom environment.

Here are the steps for implementing “puzzle art” on the first day of school:

Google a 12-piece puzzle template and print it out, based on the number of students in your class.
Cut the puzzle pieces and distribute one to each student, including yourself if you want to be a part of the classroom community.
Bring colored pencils/pen to the class.
Ask each student to draw something (or a few things) about themselves on their puzzle piece. You can draw one for yourself to demonstrate.
When they complete their drawing, have each student stand up and introduce themselves by explaining
the symbols on their piece.
Put the pieces together to form the completed puzzle.
Hang the puzzle on the classroom wall as a symbol of the community you are building together.

Tag Archives: first day of school

Acrostic Poem

Puzzle Art