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5 Fun Back to School Ideas

In this post, I’m going to share with you some ideas you can use on your first day back at school.

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Activity 1: All About Me

This first activity is really simple; it’s just titled ‘All about me.’ It’s inspired by a lot of what you see on Instagram, where famous people share what they like or dislike, maybe their favorite TV channels, their favorite YouTubers, their favorite music, their favorite artists. I think this kind of information, especially for teenagers, is really important, and they’re really keen to share this information with classmates to find out what they have in common. What I’ve done is I’ve built this very simple worksheet that you can find below, which will really help your teenage students to share what they like and what they don’t like in class. What you’ll find is if you have two or more students who share the same interests, for example, if their favorite YouTuber is the same, they’ll instantly feel more connected, and you’ll start to build that community that you need in your class.

All about me | Idea for first day of class

Activity 2: What Did You Do This Summer?

The second idea is about asking our students what they did in the summer. Now, when you do ask your students what they did in the summer, there’s a very good chance they’re going to say ‘nothing’ because they probably think what they did is of no significance, of no importance, or is not interesting enough to share in class. And so, what usually happens when we ask our students these questions, we don’t really get the response we’re looking for. That’s why I’ve put together some alternative back-to-school questions that you can ask your students in class. I’m going to put them on the screen right now.

I find that these questions are a little bit different from what you would normally ask your students, so you might get some interesting responses that you can use to then lead into other discussions in the classroom.

  • If you’re looking for more ideas for the first day of class, then check out this post right here.

Activity 3: Pair or Group Discussion

The third idea, which is linked to the second one about what they did in the summer, is having the students sit in pairs or in groups. You’re going to focus on the question, ‘What did you do this summer?’ But every time they ask a second or third or fourth question, they have to change the verb. So, for example, the first student would ask, ‘What did you do this summer?’ The second student would respond and then ask a second question using the same structure but just changing the verb. So, ‘What did you eat this summer?’ This activity is good for lower levels, as you can just keep changing one verb but keep the same structure. With slightly higher levels, you can begin to change the verbs but also the question word. For example, imagine you use the verb ‘fly,’ you’d have to change the question word to ‘where.’ So, imagine you have a group of students, and they would start with ‘What did you do this summer?’ ‘What did you play this summer?’ ‘Where did you go this summer?’ ‘What did you build this summer?’ And you can see how long that group goes before they just can’t think of any other verbs.

Activity 4: What to Ask and What Not to Ask

This next activity is titled ‘What to Ask and What Not to Ask.’ The idea is that when you meet someone for the first time, you have to really think about what questions you can ask and what questions you can’t ask. Obviously, this may change from country to country and from culture to culture. So, to set up the activity, just ask your students to think about what’s an example of a question that they would ask someone if they were meeting them for the first time, and what’s an example of a question that they would never ask. I like this activity because you get to see what your students would consider inappropriate or appropriate, and sometimes the results can be surprising. Give your students two colored pieces of paper, yellow and blue, for example. It can be anything. On the yellow, for example, they would write all the questions they would think are appropriate when meeting someone for the first time, and the blue card is for inappropriate questions. Once students have finished writing all their questions on their colored card, you’re then going to collect them all and put them in a hat or a glass jar. You’re going to pull them randomly and get your students to debate in class whether they agree that this question is appropriate or inappropriate.

Activity 5: Using Coursework for Conversations

This last idea is from Chris Rowland’s Teaching Teenagers English YouTube channel, which I’ll link below. The idea is that you take the school’s coursework for that class and you find all the speaking questions or conversation questions. You then build a conversation class using those questions. This way, the students will see what kind of language they’re going to need to produce to be able to answer those questions. Also, as the teacher, use it as a needs analysis, and you’ll find out what your students know and what your students don’t know. It makes a lot more sense to use these questions than just some generic ones because this will give your students preparation for the rest of the course.

I’ve put a link to all the websites, Instagram channels, and YouTube channels below that have inspired me, so don’t forget to check those out. Good luck with your first day of class with your new students.

Alternatives to “How was Your Summer Holiday?”