First Day of Class Activities

What to do the first day of class?

The following are activity ideas for the first days of classes. 
These ideas are collected from the net and other teachers.

1) Vocabulary Check: Find out how much vocabulary students can remember after their holidays. Students take it in turns to say a word, but the first letter of their word must be the same as the last letter of the preceding word. For example: school, life, exam, madness, etc.

2) About the teacher: Give the students markers, it works better with 4 or 5, and tell them to go onto the board and write personal questions they would like to ask the teacher. Then, proceed to answer them at the best of your abilities.

3) About the students: Ask the students the following questions so you can get to know them, ask follow up question if something interesting pops up. This can be done during the class or you can give students time to prepare answers so they can think about it. 

Where do you study?
What do you like about English?
What are your hobbies?
What do you see yourself doing in the next 5-10 years?
Who are your friends in this class?
What are you are most proud of?
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
What extracurricular activities are you involved in?

If I could go anywhere, I would...
I learn the most when the teacher...
After high school, I will probably...
My ideal job would be...
Three adjectives others might use to describe me are...

4) Deception: Prepare some pieces of paper saying TRUE and others saying LIE. Give one of each to the students. Then, tell them that you are going to say things about your life, then start telling brief stories about yourself, some real and others invented. When you finish, make students decide if it is true or false. If they get it correctly, give them a point. After three anecdotes, tell the students to start saying things about themselves and et the other students try to guess if it is true or a lie. Give them points for correct  answers and find out who is the best at realizinf the real stories. 

5) Vocabulary Olympics: Divide the students in two or three teams and put their vocabulary to the test by taking part in the following vocabulary games played on the board. Every game won give the winning team a point, the winner by the end of the games are the winners.

- Starting Letter: Give each student a marker, of different color if possible. Tell them that they are going to be playing against each other. Tell them that you will say a letter and they have to write on the board as many words as possible starting with that letter, and they only have one minute. At the end of the minute the students stop, words are counted as points, mispelled or copied words do not give any point. 

Example: Teacher says the letter is B.

The students write Ball, Blast, Bear, Bearing and Bat.


- Word Bridge: Give each student a marker, of different color if possible. Tell them that they are going to be playing against each other. They will have 1 minute to write as many words as possible that are connected by the last letter. The first word is given by the teacher and then the students must make a list of words in which they have to connect the last letter by putting that letter first in the next word. At the end of the minute the students stop, words are counted as points, mispelled or copied words do not give any point. 

Example: Teacher says the word is Wolf.

The students write:
Wolf (Finishes in F)
Forest (Starts in F and finishes in T, so the next letter must start with T)
Tree (And so on)
English
House
Exactly

- Number Dictation: Give each student a marker, of different color if possible. Tell them that they are going to be playing against each other. Tell the students you will dictate big numbers and they have to write in numbers as fast as they can, the one to finish and say stop is the winner. Use numbers according to their proficiency level. 

Example: Teacher says one thousand three hundred twenty-nine.

Students write 1.329, and then they have to say stop.

- Word Category: Give each student a marker, of different color if possible. Tell them that they are going to be playing against each other. Tell the students you will give them a category such as "Countries" or "Animals" and they have to write as many words as possible that belong to that category. They have only one minute to do it. At the end of the minute the students stop, words are counted as points, mispelled or copied words do not give any point. 

Example: Teacher says "countries".

Students write Brazil, Canada, Russia, Italy... 

- Crazy Dictation: Give each student a marker, of different color if possible. Tell them that they are going to be playing against each other. Tell the students you will dictate a crazy sentence and they have to write it on the board as fast as possible. Use phrases according to their proficiency level. Any mispelling makes the sentence invalid. They have only one minute to finish. 

Example: Teacher says "Elephants love hiking in the mountains".

Students write that as fast as possible, the first to do it well wins. 

- 3/4/5: Give each student a marker, of different color if possible. Tell them that they are going to be playing against each other. Tell them that you will say a letter and they have to write on the board three words starting with that letter, but also the first one must have only three letters, the second four letters and the last one five letters exactly. The first student to finish is the winner. Any mispelled word invalids the word. 

Example: Teacher says the letter is B.

Students writes Bad, ball and blast.