Getting-to-Know-You Icebreaker Activity

Have you ever bought those blank building block towers and thought, "Oh! I'm totally going to do something cool with these for my students!" and then you never get around to it?  Yeah...me too.

Well - until today!

"something cool" = Getting-to-Know-You Icebreaker Activity

Do you want one for your classroom?  Follow the simple steps below:

Head over to my Teachers Pay Teachers store to grab the printable.  Yes, of course you could type up your own questions.  But for a buck, you will save the time and energy of getting the formatting and sizing perfect.  Trust me, it took me for-ev-er this morning and I wasted a lot of paper and ink figuring it out, LOL!

Cut out the boxes.  I even trimmed a bit on the inside of each box for my mini blocks, but if you have the normal-sized Jenga blocks, you could cut right on the lines.

 THIS PART IS IMPORTANT!  Smear some glue on the block before you put the paper down!  At first, I was just laying the paper down without glue and when I tried to apply the tape, the static would make the paper jump up to the tape and the alignment would get off.  My husband was like, "Why don't you just glue it first?"  Duh Amber.  :)

Lay down the paper.  (Please ignore my chipped nails...)

Rip off some packing tape about that long for the mini blocks; perhaps a bitter longer for the normal-sized Jenga blocks.

You can skip this step if you are using the normal-sized Jenga blocks, but if you have the minis like me, you'll want to cut off a bit of the edge of the packing tape (or it will hang off the side of the block).

Put the tape on the paper...

...then wrap the tape around the block.

Viola!

Once assembled this is assembled, you can use it year after year during that back to school time.  The questions are appropriate for any elementary or middle school grade level.  I have included way more questions than blocks that come in a set, so you can pick and choose which questions you like best!

I am going to have my first graders pull a block from a bag, read and answer the question, then place the block on the tower in the middle of the circle. You could do it where each child answers each question...it just depends on how much time you have! I plan to have my students build our tower on a tray, so if we don't finish in one day, we can set the tray aside and continue the next day.

I hope you and your students LOVE this great icebreaker activity!  If you have any questions, send 'em my way.