Back to School Activities for Middle & High School

Back-to-school season is such a busy, overwhelming time of year. Between classroom setup, beginning-of-year PD, endless teaching meetings, new initiatives, curriculum mapping, and lesson planning, it can be easy to overlook the first few days of school. There’s so much to do that you’re often focusing on the “big picture” (as you should). Unfortunately, this often leads to doing the “same old thing” we’ve done year after year. And for many of us, it’s the dreaded syllabus review, the “get to know your teacher” slideshow, or some awkward icebreaker that we don’t love.

I get it. I’ve been there. And I used to get so stressed about the first day and week of school because I didn’t love my plans, and I knew my students didn’t either. Over time, I realized that I could “create my own adventure” during the first week of school. I could plan easy, student-centered, and fun community-building activities while taking care of back to school business. I could focus on relationships and expectations while easing into content. And guess what happened?

I designed a first week of school lesson lineup that I LOVED. Plans that made me excited to start school after a relaxing summer. Activities that set the tone and gave students a taste of what they could expect the rest of the year. And the rest was history!

Now, I start the school year with confidence. Each year, I repeat some of the same tried-and-true favorites, adapt other activities for my grade level/classes/needs, and experiment with a new idea or two. From teaching 7th grade to second-semester seniors, many of my routines and activities have stayed the same; I’ve just adapted, scaffolded, and switched things up as needed. After 10 years, I have this whole back-to-school routine down to a science, and it makes my life so much easier (and much more fun) come August. And now, I’m sharing all of my favorite activities with you, so you can fill in your calendar and feel just as prepared and peaceful, too.

Ready to start the school year strong and add some new strategies to your back-to-school teacher toolbox? Grab your planner and keep reading to learn all about my 10 favorite back-to-school activities that will help you build community and have fun without sacrificing your precious time and energy this fall!

1. INVESTIGATE THE TEACHER

Want to ditch your boring Day 1 routine or replace your “get to know your teacher” slideshow? Ready for students to remember the first day of your class because it’s refreshing and different? The “Investigate Your Teacher” activity is your solution for an engaging, unforgettable first day of school!

Here’s how it works: Instead of telling your students about yourself, you challenge them to “investigate” your classroom for clues about your personality, teaching style, interests, expectations, etc. After giving students a graphic organizer, release them to explore your classroom as they search for “evidence” to help them make inferences about you. It helps to model the types of inferences you’re looking for and challenge students to go beyond the obvious. For example, if students see a coffee cup, instead of writing down “Miss G likes coffee,” they might infer “Miss G is energetic in the morning” or even “Miss G is a night owl so she needs her morning coffee and is not fun without it!”

Students love this activity because it’s so unique and surprising–scurrying around the room, rummaging through cabinets, and perusing every poster while everyone else is reading the syllabus in the classroom next door? It’s an absolute treat for them, but also for you! It’s entertaining, for one, but it’s also no-prep, student-centered, and laid-back. Since you’re not standing in front of the classroom reading from a syllabus or PowerPoint, you can bop around the room, chat with students, and start getting to know them.

If you don’t think your classroom is decorated enough for this, you share a classroom, or you teach online, you can still facilitate this with the help of technology. In fact, this is exactly what I did when I taught online (pre-pandemic) and when all schools transitioned to virtual learning during the pandemic. All you have to do is create some “virtual exhibits” via Google slides/PowerPoints and display different artifacts, photos, and other media that students can use to make inferences. You can read all about how to facilitate Investigate the Teacher digitally and see all of my own examples HERE.

If you’re ready to implement this on your first day of school, you can check out my ready-to-use resource HERE. It comes complete with two versions (digital and print), teacher information, and a full lesson plan.

2: BACK TO SCHOOL LEARNING STATIONS

If you need to cover essential back-to-school information (like the syllabus) and want to sneak in some extra get-to-know-you activities, then you’ll love learning stations! Learning stations are engaging, efficient, and student-centered, and we use them frequently throughout the school year, so it only makes sense to introduce them early. Since I do “Investigate the Teacher” on the first day of school, I facilitate learning stations on Day 2 to “take care of business.”

I’ve done these back-to-school stations for the last 7+ years, in grades 7-12. I keep the format the same, but I often change up the exact tasks and activities, depending on my grade level, my students’ needs, and my school. Like “Investigate the Teacher,” learning stations are great for building community because you can walk around the room, join small groups for different stations, and start to put faces to names. The small group nature of stations also means that students can interact and get to know each other, too.

With Google Slides or PowerPoint, you can create an interactive “menu” of digital learning stations. This student-friendly way of structuring stations makes it easy to include or link any relevant documents, such as your syllabus or learning objectives. The possibilities are endless, but here’s an example of my back-to-school learning stations:

• At the 1st station, students review the syllabus and answer essential questions.
• During the 2nd station, students set goals with learning objectives written in student-friendly language.
• For the 3rd station, students complete a creative “one word” activity in Google Slides.
• The 4th station is super practical: a Student Survey via Google Forms.
• Finally, the 5th station is a fun get-to-know-you Padlet selfie activity! (Students love this, but it’s my favorite because it helps me learn students’ faces and connect them to their names/fun facts.)

You can read more about the stations HERE or check out my editable print/digital stations with interactive, clickable buttons HERE. (These stations will work in a traditional, hybrid or fully virtual learning environment.)

3: ALL ABOUT ME SLIDE & CLASS SLIDESHOW OR EBOOK

Once you’ve reviewed important information, you’ll probably want to work on getting to know your students and building classroom community. That’s why I love assigning some kind of “All About Me” project at the beginning of the year. But I love taking it one step further than the traditional slideshow and creating a collaborative slide deck that I can turn into a class “ebook” at the end of the activity. Here’s how I do it:

• First, I’ll ask students to create an “All About Me” Google Slide. I’ll give them some templates and examples, as well as the option to creatively design their own slide from scratch. (You can check out all of my templates HERE.)
• Then, once students have submitted their slides, I’ll pull them all into one slideshow, add a cover and co-created class norms page, and save it as a PDF.
• Finally, I will “publish” the ebook in PDF form by posting & linking it on our Google Classroom page. This way, we can “read” the ebook and get to know each other better!

If you’d like to save time creating this project, check out my resource HERE. It includes thorough teacher and student instructions, as well as multiple slide templates for students to choose from. The example below is the corkboard theme, but computer, book, and colorful-themed templates are also included in the resource.

4. SYLLABUS & EXPECTATIONS “QUESTION TRAIL” REVIEW

If you’re skipping the traditional syllabus review, you might still want to find a way to keep students accountable for all of the important information in this document! If so, then I have a super fun solution for you: a question trail!

A question trail is one of my all-time favorite strategies for making almost any content more engaging, which means it couldn’t be more perfect to review the syllabus, expectations, procedures, or any other housekeeping info. As its name suggests, this activity involves a “trail” of questions posted around the classroom. At each spot in the classroom, students answer a multiple-choice question. The answer to each question sends students to a different question on the trail. When students answer all questions correctly, they successfully complete the circuit with a specific sequence.  If a student answers a question incorrectly, they end up at a question they’ve already answered, which is their cue to backtrack or check in with the “trail guide” (the teacher). So not only is the question trail engaging, it’s also somewhat of a “self-checking” activity. 🙂

To create a question trail, all you need is a set of multiple choice questions and a template. For example, in a syllabus/expectations review question trail, you might ask the following questions:

• What supplies should you bring with you to class each day?
• What is our beginning-of-class routine?
• What should you do when you are absent?
• What happens if you plagiarize and/or use AI in an assignment?
• What is the late/makeup work policy?
• You get the idea…basically any important procedures, policies, expectations, or information that you want students to know so you can have a successful start to your year.

Once you have a list of questions, all you have to do is plug them into a question trail template, and you’ll be ready to do this engaging activity with your students. Lucky for you, I have a handful of question trail templates that make it super easy to pull off this kinesthetic review without any stress or time-consuming prep. You can check out all of my question trail templates HERE. (Each is available separately, so click on whatever template interests you the most!)

You can learn more about question trails in the following blog posts:

• Why You Should Try a Question Trail
• 10 Ways to Use Question Trails in Your Classroom
• Question Trails: Frequently Asked Questions

5. CLASSROOM LIBRARY SCAVENGER HUNT

If you’re an ELA teacher, then there’s no better time to get books in students’ hands than the first day/week of school! And if you have a classroom library, you probably want to introduce students to all of your wonderful books, explain the checkout/return system, and review expectations and procedures, too. But as I’ve shown you with hands-on, student-centered activities like learning stations and question trails, there’s a better way to “introduce” your classroom library. You don’t need to drone on as you demonstrate every nook and cranny and reiterate every procedure.

Instead, try a classroom library scavenger hunt. This student-centered, inquiry-based alternative is the best way to get students IN your library and interacting with books and each other. It will help students learn the procedures by practicing them, not just hearing you lecture about them. By the end of this activity, students will be familiar with your library’s organization and confident with its systems. Better yet, students will have added books to their to-read lists and started the conversations that lead to a thriving reading community later in the year.

You can check out my editable classroom library scavenger hunt activity HERE. If you don’t have a classroom library, this can easily be adapted for use in a school library or online library (like Overdrive–learn more about it HERE).

6. “LINKING IN” PAPER CHAIN ACTIVITY

Build class community, facilitate creative thinking & connections, and get to know your students with this engaging back-to-school activity! This is actually what I did on the first day of school last year when I was looping with a group of students who had already done my “Investigate the Teacher” activity the previous year. It’s a great option for building community in a class full of students who don’t know each other AND strengthening community in a group that already knows each other but could still use a back-to-school boost.

“Linking In” is a simple but fun twist on a paper chain, an activity designed to help students make creative connections with their classmates. During this activity, students write/draw things they love and parts of their identity on strips of paper. Then, students work together to find connections between what they’ve recorded on the strips of paper. When students find a connection, they link their strips together to form a chain. By the end of this activity, you will have a class paper chain that represents what your students have in common! The completed chain doubles as cute and meaningful classroom decor. What’s not to love?!

While you can easily recreate this activity with any colorful paper, you can find my complete version of the activity that features instructions, a visually appealing slideshow, and student reflection organizer HERE.

SPEED DISCUSSION (GET TO KNOW YOU, READING, OR SPEED DEBATING)

Can you tell that one of my big goals for the first day/week of school is building relationships (with and between the students)? The more time you invest in building community at the beginning of the year, the easier it is to teach content the rest of the year. That’s why I have another fun, creative community building activity that’s perfect for the beginning of the year: speed discussion!

Speed discussion is a simple but powerful discussion strategy in which students have mini “speed” discussions with peers. Each round, students rotate to a different peer and discuss a different topic on their discussion “dates.” It’s engaging because it’s student-centered, kinesthetic, interactive, and attention-span friendly. Here are a few ideas for facilitating speed discussion during the first few days of school:

• Get-to-Know-You Speed Discussion: Engage your students, get to know them better, and build classroom community with this fun “speed dating” activity, a twist on the typical “get-to-know-you” icebreaker. Check out this resource HERE.
• Reading Habits/Identity/Preferences Speed Discussion: Get to know your readers, start building a reading community, and spark honest conversations about reading/books with this reading-themed speed discussion. This works especially well after a reading inventory. It’s important to give students time to express their feelings about reading so you can tailor your reading instruction, book recs, and strategies to their unique needs. Check it out HERE.
• Summer Reading Speed Discussion: If you assigned summer reading and don’t know what to do with it (beyond some kind of writing task), bring it to life with speed discussion! If students all read the same novel, I recommend using Speed Discussion for Any Novel. If students read different novels, then Independent Reading Speed Discussion is what you need! You can find it HERE.
• Speed Debating: Want to do some “just for fun” speed discussion, spark lively debates, or lead into a unit on persuasion/argument/debate? Try speed debating, a fun twist on speed discussion. Featuring a mix of serious, silly, and ridiculous prompts, this is sure to get kids arguing! You can check out Speed Debating Volume 1 HERE and Volume 2 with new prompts HERE.

When you facilitate a speed dating lesson, you will witness shy or reluctant students coming alive, struggling students gaining confidence, and “too cool for school” students having fun! It’s the BEST way to start the year. You can find all of my speed discussion resources HERE.

7. DIGITAL ICEBREAKERS

In between all of these back-to-school activities, I’ll be playing traditional and digital icebreakers with my students! I love icebreaker games that can be played whenever we have a few spare moments, which is why I found a way to transform my favorite physical icebreakers to virtual ones.

One traditional activity I love is the “toss and talk” icebreaker where you write a bunch of questions on a beach ball and toss it around the room. If we have enough time, I like to bust this out and play it, but if we just have a few minutes, I opt for the less chaotic, digital version of it. To create a digital version of this, I used this fun spinning wheel website. I call this version of the game “Spin the Wheel,” and students love it! To keep it low-stakes, I give students lots of choices. After selecting a category (Basics, Favorites, or Wild Card), students can choose one fun question to answer. It’s the perfect quick game to play when you finish class early. You can find this virtual icebreaker and 4 others, including digital versions of Two Truths and Lie and 4 Corners, HERE.

8. PERSONALITY TEST REFLECTION

Icebreakers and get-to-know-you activities are fun, but it’s also important to get to know your students on an even deeper level at the beginning of the year. Asking your students to take and reflect on a personality test is a great way to facilitate this. I use the online 16 Personalities test and this Google slides/forms reflection activity. The reflection component challenges students to be introspective as they think about their strengths and weaknesses, ability to work with others, approach to school/work, and more. In addition, the online test offers great practice at reading, summarizing, evaluating, and reflecting on information. After the reflection activity, I always lead small-group and/or whole-class discussions so students can learn about each other. This kind of open discussion always generates a stronger sense of class community, mutual respect, and trust.

I love doing this at the beginning of the year because it challenges students to think about who they are and how they can have their best year yet. If you’d like to implement it, you can check out my print and digital lesson HERE.

Please Note: This particular personality test includes a section on “Romantic Relationships” that may not be suitable for your students. I use this in high school, instruct students to skip it, and monitor their devices. For middle schoolers, I recommend finding a different personality test that is more age-appropriate.

9. INTERVIEW CHALLENGE

Remember the classic “talk to a partner and introduce them to the class” icebreaker? The “Interview Challenge” is an engaging extension of that activity with some speaking, listening, and writing mixed in. It’s the perfect combination of a get-to-know-you activity and real, worthwhile content. I actually love doing this during the second week of school, as an ELA intro + writing sample + get to know you combo. Here’s how it works:

Before the activity, ask students to reflect on a memorable moment. If you teach ELA like me, you’ll want them to write about it first. Then, have students pair up with a classmate. Once students are with their partner, they will briefly share their memorable moments without giving away more information than necessary. After sharing, the students will take time to brainstorm a list of questions to ask in order to write a story about their partner’s memorable moment. Finally, students will interview each other and then use the information they gather to write a story about their partner. 

You can make this activity as simple or complex as you want. I originally designed the lesson for a journalism class, so I used it to teach the art of asking the right questions. Over time, I found that this simple but purposeful activity makes for a great writing sample, so I began to use it at the beginning of the year in many of my ELA classes.

The best part of this activity is reading your students’ final stories. You’ll learn so much about your new students and what has shaped their lives. You can even compile all of the stories into a class ebook. If you’re interested, you can check out my”Interview Challenge” resource HERE.

10. BOOK TASTING

If you loved the idea of a classroom library scavenger hunt during the first few day of school, then you need to make time for a book tasting, too. A book tasting is a fun name for a pretty simple strategy: You round up high-interest books and give students a chance to explore, or “taste,” the different titles. Some teachers take the “tasting” theme and run with it, but I prefer to keep things simple, engaging, and efficient. If you’re serious about implementing independent reading and helping students fall in love with books this year, then this activity is something you should do ASAP. The sooner you can get books into students’ hands, the better.

All you need is a big stack of books and a way for students to record their impressions of each book and keep track of their favorites. Really, it can be that simple! But if you prefer to elevate your book tasting with tried-and-true book recs, a fun interactive digital book menu, and student-friendly recording sheets and forms, then you’ll love my book tasting collection for middle and high school readers HERE. For more ideas about structuring and facilitating book tastings, check out this blog post.

For your first book tasting of the year, I recommending gathering all of your tried-and-true students favorites, especially graphic novels, novels in verse, and other titles that will hook students who “hate” to read. If you need some help, here are a few resources to help you learn what titles are trending and what books to pull out at the beginning of the year:

• Join our Facebook group for book recs. We recently finished up a “Favorites of the Year” series where teachers shared the books their students loved last year, genre by genre. It’s a gold mine of great book recs.
• Check out my book rec posters and book rec brochures. These best-selling resources feature the “best of the best” books, so they do the hard work for you. 🙂 They’re also a great way for you to familiarize yourself with relevant titles and learn what to recommend to readers. Check out the middle school brochures HERE and the high school collection HERE. Click HERE to see the middle school posters and HERE to find the high school version.
• Ask your school and/or local librarian for book recommendations. They have access to circulation data and can probably pull a list of most checked-out titles.
• Utilize my middle and high school book tasting menus and book lists. These are the perfect shortcut to a successful book tasting! Featuring “clickable” menus, thorough book lists, and appealing materials, these make book tastings easy! You can find my whole collection of book tasting resources HERE.

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I hope these back-to-school activities help you start the year with confidence, build community from the start, and lessen your stress during this busy but exciting season. All of the activities (and more) mentioned in this blog post are available in my TPT store HERE. Keep scrolling for links to more blog posts that will help you start the school year strong!

NEED SOME MORE TIPS, TRICKS, AND LESSON IDEAS FOR THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL?

• Why I don’t review the syllabus on the first day of school (and what I do instead)
• 5 Tips for A Stress-Free First Day of School
• Investigate The Teacher: Frequently Asked Questions
• Investigate the Teacher Activity: What to Include in Your Virtual Exhibits
• Using Personality Tests in the Classroom
• 5 Reasons to Try Back to School Learning Stations
• A Dozen Ideas for Back to School Learning Stations

OKAY, YOU’RE READY FOR THE FIRST FEW DAYS OF SCHOOL. WHAT NOW?

• 10 Tips for Starting Independent Reading Strong
• 5 engaging, student-centered ELA strategies to try this year
• Why you should try a question trail
• How to Host Book Speed Dating in Middle or High School ELA
• 6 Ways to Use Speed Dating in Your Classroom
• Engaging Activities for Teaching Any Novel in Verse
• 10 Activities for Any Dystopian Novel