Māori Language Week or Sustainability week. Students post 100 words in Te reo Māori, the word or phrase, meaning with an audio attempt. See Awareness Week 

This energizer is a fun way to get to know your students better. Not just the basics, like where they live or if they have a brother, but real stories and anecdotes.

The students have to tell 3 facts about their life. Something that happened to them. Two of them should be true, and one should be a lie. The other students have to find out which one is the lie. You’ll be surprised what kind of crazy things can actually happen! (Or how good your students can lie!)

For this classroom game, students need to be flexible and balanced. For every student, the teacher places a chair. All the chairs should be lined up in a single line. Every student has to stand on a chair. Then, the teacher asks them to go stand in a certain order. For example: “I want you to organize yourselves from young to old.” The students now have to change places without touching the ground.

One of my favorite games for students is definitely this one! Have your students form pairs. The students can’t see each other. One student gets a drawing you have prepared earlier. Ideally, the drawing should be something relevant to what you are teaching.

The student holding the drawing needs to give good instructions to the other student. The other students needs to draw it without being able to see the original picture. If you want to spice up the classroom game, you can put a variety of conditions to it. For example: no asking questions, must draw with your non writing hand etc. Aren’t you curious about the results?

When you use this energizer as a revision activity, you let the pair explain to the rest of the class what the drawing is about.

Students think of an adjective to describe themselves. The adjective must suit the student and must also start with the first letter of their name.

The students have to memorize every name. The first student just says his name, but the second and the rest of the students have to name the previous names before saying their name. The last students will have to do the hard work.

12. Don’t answer

Ask the students to stand in a circle. One student starts by going up to someone else. The student asks the other student a question. For example: “What is your most annoying habit?” However, that person may not answer the question, but the person on his left must answer. The answer doesn’t have to be right. Students can make their answers as imaginative as possible. Fun guaranteed!

13. Give a compliment
No one’s tool old for compliments! This energizer lets students feel better about themselves by sharing compliments. Each student gets a paper on their back. Every student has to write down a compliment on the paper on the backs of every other student. They cannot miss a single one. Afterwards the students can read their paper and all the compliments they have been given.

14. Countdown

Students have to count from 1 to 20. There is one rule though: there is no particular order. Students have to yell the consecutive number whenever they want. But when two students yell a number at the same time, you have to start counting from 1 again. Wonder how long it will take until you reach 20?

15. Be unique

This classroom game is about being unique and about getting to know each other better. Everyone stands in a circle. Every student has to say something unique about themselves. For example: “I have four brothers.” If another student also has four brothers, the students who shared the ‘not-so-unique’ aspect has to sit down. The goal is to stand as long as possible and therefore to share very special things about yourself that no one else typifies.

If these 15 examples of energizers aren’t enough, you should definitely take a look at this website and this slideshow about energizers for schools. I’m sure you will find some inspiration there. You can also take a look at these 5 fun back-to-school icebreakers for the first school day.