First day/week/month ideas

Preparation in advance; thoughts in progress; ideas that seem right, at least beforehand.

Games

• Chain of Hands (with a twist): Tell students to stand up and walk around the classroom. They don't have to touch each other, just make eye contact with all the classmates they meet. Then, the teacher says "High five" (previously demonstrating if SS don't know the expression), and so all students start giving 'high five's to each other and saying "Hi". After that, the teacher says "Hold hands", and the students hold a classmate's hand and introduce themselves "Hello, I'm...", and they can't let go of that hand until they've found somebody else to hold hands with. Read in Sabrina's blog.
• Connections (with a twist): You have to use a big piece of butcher paper, write all the names on it and then cut out each name as a jigsaw puzzle piece. Everyone sits behind their name with a marker, and we start the game with one student sharing something about himself. If a student finds a connection with what he said, he draws a line connecting their names. They also write what connected them on the line. At the end, when the paper was a barely legible mess of lines and words, we drew conclusions about what this game taught us. Read in Larry Ferlazzo's blog. 
• Group Biography: put SS in groups of 4/5 and hand out a questionnaire. They have to ask each other unusual questions and then go to the front and introduce their partners with unusual information.
• Birthday Line: SS order themselves according to day/month/year they were born.
• Hands Info: SS draw the shape of their hands and write personal information inside the fingers.
• Me!: Teacher reads out questions and SS stand up and shout "Me!" if they hear a question that includes them.
• Roll Call Fun: When the teacher calls out SS names, instead of saying "Present" they think of the topic of the day (favourite food, hobby, TV show, song, etc)
• Find Somebody Who: a classic, really, but never thought of doing it at the beginning of the school year.
• Gatekeeper (with a twist): make all SS go to the front, and then call out a category "Green eyes". SS who want to sit down have to find sb else to pass through the gate.
• Candies Fun: SS take out 3 candies from a bag, and they then have to speak about three different topics (e.g. yellow = holidays) before eating them). All the games from "Group Biography" downwards were read here.

Learn to learn

•  Write about hopes and fears that the subject 

• Learning to learn: teach SS to set attainable goals and to break them down into easy, practical steps