get-to-know-you | Squarehead Teachers

My Neighbor sticker When I was in elementary school, my class was always partnered with another class so we could do “Reading Buddies.” My school always partnered a younger grade class with an upper grade class so we could get together and read each month. This provided us a unique opportunity to read to/listen to another student. Each kid was assigned a kid from the other class and we were partners the whole year. We occasionally did a craft or something with our reading buddies as well. Anyway, it was fun to get to know my partner as the year went on.

My Buddy sticker

This inspired me to make 2 little “get to know you” pages that teachers can use within their own classroom or between classrooms of students in an arrangement like “Reading Buddies.

Click here for the free printable: Get to Know Your Buddy and Get to Know Your Neighbor. Enjoy!

I recently saw this idea and thought it was really cool! At the beginning of the year, students make a poster introducing themselves using numbers! Shoot, you could do this activity at any point in the year, not just the start of the year. For example they might use shoe size, weight, height, number of siblings, birthday, class number, number of pets they’ve owned, etc. Here comes the challenge (for upper grades): then students use sticky tabs to cover the actual numbers (written in standard form) and instead write an equation. See the examples below:

Then display the posters and see if kids can figure out who is who. This is especially fun if kids have completed the poster as a homework assignment (so kids don’t see them making it). Either way, it’s a great way to build number sense and reinforce the idea that a number can be written many, many ways. Enjoy!