Beyond the “About Me” Worksheet: 8 Purposeful Connections for the First Week of School

The first week of school is a whirlwind of nervous energy and limitless potential. While it’s tempting to focus exclusively on rules and syllabi, a growing body of research confirms that our first, and most critical, task is to build a foundation of connection and belonging.

As the legendary educator Rita Pierson expressed in her powerful TED Talk, “Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them.” This sentiment is powerfully supported by research from organizations like the American Psychological Association (2023), which shows that students who feel safe, seen, and valued in their classrooms are more likely to achieve academically, engage in learning, and develop stronger interpersonal skills.

The quality of these initial relationships can have a lasting impact. In fact, positive student-teacher connections established in early grades can predict academic success and improved behavior well into middle school (O’Connor, Dearing, & Collins, 2011). Furthermore, even brief interventions that reinforce students’ sense of belonging can significantly improve academic outcomes and long-term well-being, particularly for marginalized students (Walton & Cohen, 2011).

The Challenge of Building Relationships

The challenge, of course, lies in how to build these relationships purposefully while juggling the immense pressures of establishing routines, teaching expectations, and managing classroom logistics. 

A familiar “About Me” worksheet is commonly used to learn more about our students. But let’s be honest, these often fall flat. While well-intentioned, they rarely lead to authentic, dynamic interactions that foster a real sense of community. It is just a worksheet to complete and hang in the hallway.

As a secondary teacher with over 150 students, I vividly remember trying to write a meaningful comment on every “About Me” card. What began as a sincere effort quickly turned into a logistical chore, one that didn’t result in the connections I hoped to build.

That realization was a turning point.

A Better Approach

What if our introductory activities could do double, or even triple duty? What if we could build relationships, teach academic strategies, reinforce procedures, and have fun within the first few days?

Below are eight alternatives to the traditional "About Me" worksheet, each designed to fuse relationship-building with foundational academic skills in meaningful, memorable ways.

1. Speed Friending

This high-energy activity gets students talking and moving, all within a structured format.

• The Activity: Based on the speed-dating model, students are given a short amount of time (e.g., 2-3 minutes) to interview a partner before an attention signal prompts them to move to a new, pre-assigned partner. Provide engaging, age-appropriate questions like, "If you could live in any TV or book universe, which would it be and why?" After interviewing 4-6 peers, students write a brief summary arguing why they believe two of the people they met would be great members of their learning group.

• The Academic Strategy: Summarization and Justification.

• The Procedural Practice: Modeling attention signals, volume levels, timed conversations, and orderly movement.

• Pro-Tips for Success:

1. Structure the Rotation: Use an "inside circle/outside circle" formation or pre-assign partners and display the pairings on the board. This eliminates anxiety about finding a partner and ensures no one is left out.

2. Project the Prompt: Display the question and a visual timer on the board. This keeps students on task and helps them manage their time independently without you having to be the sole timekeeper.

2. Classroom Detectives: Compare and Contrast

Use the physical space of your classroom as the text for this activity.

• The Activity: Have students, in pairs or small groups, compare and contrast this year's classroom with their classroom from last year. Prompt them with the question: "What do you see in this room that is designed to help you learn? How is it similar to or different from what you've used before?" They can create a Venn diagram or a simple T-chart.

• The Academic Strategy: Compare and Contrast.

• The Procedural Practice: Introducing norms for collaborative work, use of materials, and presentation expectations.

• Pro-Tips for Success:

1. Provide Sentence Starters: Offer academic language support like, "One similarity is...," "A key difference I noticed is...," or "This feature might help us learn by..." to scaffold the discussion and writing.

2. Hold a Gallery Walk: Have students post their charts and walk around the room to see what other groups noticed. This validates their work and allows them to build on the ideas of their peers.

3. The "Me in a Bag" Inference Challenge

This classic activity gets a strategic twist when you explicitly teach the thinking skill involved.

• The Activity: Bring in a bag filled with 5-7 items that represent you. As you pull out each item (the detail), ask students what they can infer about you based on this evidence. Provide sentence frames like, "Because I see a __, I can infer that you __."

• The Academic Strategy: Inference.

• The Procedural Practice: Modeling how to listen respectfully, building on others' ideas, and using evidence.

• Pro-Tips for Success:

1. Include an Ambiguous Item: When modeling with your own bag, intentionally include an object that could be interpreted in multiple ways. This creates a powerful opportunity to discuss how inferences can change with more evidence.

2. Use a Note Card: When students eventually create their own bags, have them jot down the intended meaning of each item on a note card. This helps them articulate their thinking when they share.

4. Four Corners: Argue Your Case

Get students moving and defending their opinions with this lively activity.

• The Activity: Label the four corners of your room with different choices in response to a prompt (e.g., "Which is the best pet? Dog, Cat, Fish, No Pet"). Students go to the corner that represents their choice and discuss with peers why their choice is the best.

• The Academic Strategy: Constructing an Argument and Analyzing Viewpoints.

• The Procedural Practice: Practicing respectful disagreement and civil discourse.

• Pro-Tips for Success:

1. Play the Devil's Advocate: As you circulate, gently challenge the groups with probing questions like, "What would someone in that other corner say to argue against your point?" This pushes their thinking to a deeper level.

2. Keep it Low-Stakes: Start with fun, lighthearted prompts. This builds the skill of argumentation in a safe context before you apply it to more complex academic topics.

5. Interview a Persona

This creative activity asks students to think abstractly and step into a new perspective.

• The Activity: In pairs, one student chooses a favorite concept—like a book, video game, movie, or TV show—and speaks from its persona. The other student acts as an interviewer, asking questions and writing down the answers.

• Sample Questions: "Why are you so popular with people?" "What is your main purpose—to entertain, to teach, or something else?" "How are you different from others like you?"

• The Academic Strategy: Perspective-Taking and Personification.

• The Procedural Practice: Reinforcing skills in interviewing, active listening, and note-taking.

• Pro-Tips for Success:

1. Model the Process: Do a "fishbowl" model where you interview a student volunteer in front of the class first. This clarifies the task and shows students how to ask good follow-up questions.

2. Use a Simple Organizer: Provide a basic graphic organizer for the interviewer to jot down notes. This scaffolds the note-taking process and makes the information easier to process.

6. Two-Minute Opinion Share

This is a structured version of Think-Pair-Share that promotes equity of voice and active listening.

• The Activity: Pose a get-to-know-you question. In a pair, Partner A speaks for one full minute without interruption while Partner B actively listens. Then, they switch roles. Afterward, ask a few students to share something interesting their partner said.

• The Academic Strategy: Active Listening and Articulating Ideas.

• The Procedural Practice: Establishing norms for paired work (turn-taking, eye contact, non-verbal feedback).

• Pro-Tips for Success:

1. Be Strict with the Timer: Adhering to the timed minute is crucial. It ensures equity of voice and teaches students to either elaborate on their ideas or be concise as needed.

2. Set the Listening Goal: Explicitly state that the listener's job is not to plan their response, but to fully understand their partner. This simple instruction dramatically improves listening quality.

7. Six-Word Memoirs

This powerful activity challenges students to be concise and creative while sharing something meaningful.

• The Activity: Introduce the concept of the six-word story (e.g., "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."). Explain that the goal is to capture a big idea in just six words. Model a few of your own, then have students craft and share their own.

• The Academic Strategy: Summarization and Diction (Word Choice).

• The Procedural Practice: Fostering a creative environment and introducing peer feedback norms.

• Pro-Tips for Success:

1. Share Diverse Examples: Show a range of memoirs—funny, serious, simple, complex. This demonstrates the possibilities and makes the task less intimidating for hesitant writers.

2. Create a "Memoir Wall": Display the finished six-word memoirs on a bulletin board. This celebrates every student's voice and creates a powerful, collective artifact of your new classroom community.

8. Collaborative Story Dice

Use dice to add an element of chance and fun to personal storytelling.

• The Activity: In small groups, students take turns rolling a die. The number corresponds to a story prompt (e.g., 1 = Share a proud moment. 2 = Describe a favorite family tradition. 3 = Talk about a time you laughed uncontrollably, etc.).

• The Academic Strategy: Oral Storytelling and Sequencing.

• The Procedural Practice: Reinforcing turn-taking, respectful listening, and being a supportive audience.

• Pro-Tips for Success:

1. Go Digital with Dice: If physical dice are too noisy or become a management issue, use a free dice-rolling app or website projected on the board.

2. Assign a Facilitator: In each group, assign one student the role of "Facilitator" to make sure everyone gets a turn and that the group is listening respectfully. Rotate this role for future activities.

Ultimately, swapping the static "About Me" worksheet for one of these dynamic, strategy-focused activities does more than just save you from a mountain of paperwork. It sends a powerful message from the very first day: you are intentionally building your classroom culture. This culture, founded on psychological safety and a sense of belonging, isn’t just a “nice-to-have”; it’s the essential prerequisite for academic risk-taking and deep learning (Walton & Cohen, 2011).

By intentionally building these connections from day one, you are creating the very conditions necessary for your students to feel secure, engage fully, and thrive, not just in the first week, but for the entire year to come.

Wishing You a Joyful Start

The first week of school isn’t a warm-up, it’s the foundation. Whether you're a teacher welcoming a new class or a principal setting the tone for an entire building, how you begin shapes everything that follows.

Wishing you a school year filled with joy, connection, and courageous learning. You’ve got this, and your students are lucky to have you.

Questions to Consider

For Teachers:

• How do my first week activities reflect the values of my classroom community?

• In what ways am I embedding relationship-building into instructional routines?

• How can I learn meaningful information about my students beyond surface-level facts?

• Are my students seeing themselves, culturally, emotionally, and academically, reflected in the environment I create?

• How do I intentionally model the academic and behavioral expectations I want to see?

For School Principals:

• What structures are in place to help staff prioritize relationship-building during the first week?

• How am I modeling connection and visibility with staff and students?

• Are we allocating time during professional development for teachers to collaborate around first-week planning?

• What systems exist for checking in on student sense of belonging early in the year?

• How do we celebrate and share relationship-building strategies across grade levels and departments?

Actions to Take

For Teachers:

1. Audit your first-week plans: Look for opportunities to align icebreakers with content-area strategies.

2. Choose 1–2 activities from the “Beyond the Worksheet” list and adapt them to your content and grade level.

3. Create space for reflection by having students journal or share what they’ve learned about each other.

4. Use student responses as early formative data for academic skills like summarization, justification, or inference.

5. Build a feedback loop by asking students what helped them feel welcome or connected.

For School Principals:

1. Encourage teachers to adopt relationship-focused strategies that double as academic routines.

2. Share schoolwide language and practices (e.g., attention signals, norms for group work) to reinforce consistency and community.

3. Schedule classroom walkthroughs during the first week that prioritize looking for connection-based practices.

4. Provide and highlight examples of strong first-week lessons that build both relationships and routines.

5. Gather feedback from teachers and students on their first-week experience—and use it to inform ongoing support.

References

American Psychological Association. (2023). Improving students' relationships with teachers. https://www.apa.org/education-career/k12/relationships

O'Connor, E. E., Dearing, E., & Collins, B. A. (2011). Teacher-child relationship and behavior problem trajectories in elementary school. American Educational Research Journal, 48(1), 120–162. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831210365008

Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2011). A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes of minority students. Science, 331(6023), 1447–1451. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1198364