Welcome to a new school year, upper elementary teacher friends! The best way to kick off the year is with "About Me" activities, and yes, for your big kids in upper elementary!
As we gear up to meet our new students, one powerful tool can set a positive tone for the months ahead: "About Me" activities. These engaging and insightful activities are not just icebreakers but foundational for building meaningful connections.
By giving students the opportunity to share their stories, interests, and aspirations, we create a classroom environment rich in trust and mutual respect. Investing time in these activities at the start of the year helps us better understand our students, fosters strong relationships and cultivates a sense of community where every student feels valued and understood.
These "About Me" activities are my go-to for kicking off the school year! Be sure to read to the bottom for a teacher tip you will definitely want to try this year!
1. Apple Acrostic Poetry
Get to know your students as individuals and celebrate your class community by having your students create these all about me acrostic name apple poems! You will love how unique each apple comes out when you create your "New Crop of Students" bulletin board!
💡Teacher Idea: We LOVE celebrating our names at the start of each school year with this apple acrostic activity! This activity also pairs well with picture books that also celebrate names! Read this post and try one of these books!
2. All About Me Poster
These are some of our favorite first-week-of-school activities! The kids love sharing a bit about themselves as they fill in, decorate, and complete an all-about-me poster! These posters make an adorable display and give each student some talking points about themselves that they can share during morning meetings during the first few weeks of school. You will love the informal assessment information you can gather as your students write and draw as they create their posters!
3. Snapshots of My Life
I love seeing students' snapshots of their lives when they complete these posters! The best part about these posters is that they are filled with memories, people, and different things that make them unique! Add these posters to your students' writing notebooks to serve as a brainstormed list of different things your students can write about during any personal narrative unit!
💡Teacher Idea: Another related about me poster that makes a great brainstorming task that is perfect for student notebooks or a class display are these all about me letters! Your kids will love them, and you will love how handy they are when they are added to your students' notebooks!
Grab this activity for free!
4. Me as a Book Character
These character all about me posters are so much fun, especially if you teach reading! For this fun twist on an all-about-me activity, your students will create themselves as a book character! These posters are a fun display, but also help you get to know your students thought about themselves and their experiences with books, too. These are fun to display and perfect to pull back out when you begin to dive into your character study unit!
5. About Me Bag
Your kids will love creating an about-me bag this back-to-school season! For this about me activity, you can invite your students to bring items about themselves that fit into a brown paper bag, or you can illustrate the three items on a poster page. For this task, have students select three things they love or feel represent them. Again, this can be used as a brainstorming task for students to write about during the first few weeks of school.
For a fun twist on this activity, you can turn it into an inference game. Instead of students telling the kids the three things in their bag, they can have kids guess what it is in the bag based on clues the students share. Here is an example.
1. A soccer ball is in my bag! I love playing goalie on the Hornets Team. My summer team won the summer tournament. I practice three times a week with my team. We have a net in my backyard, so I practice with my brothers, too! I wear #8. Soccer is my favorite sport!
2. I have something that represents an activity that I love to do! I use this item to practice and kick around, trying to score in a large net. You may think that it is a sport that you can play with your hands and feet, but for this sport, you can only use your feet. Unless you are the goalie, like me! What is in my bag?
6. Don't Forget About Math!
Most About Me activities focus on reading, writing, and art-based activities. However, you can bring math into the equation with tasks designed to help your students share about their math selves! The kids love to draw themselves as mathematicians, which makes an adorable display. With these Math About Me activities, you can get to know your students' math abilities and how they feel about math right from the first day of school!
💡Try this teacher tip!
You would also love to read:
Looking for print-and-go "About Me" Activities designed especially for upper elementary? Head HERE!
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