Hobbies And Interests
Match Up Games
Preschool and kindergarten children may have trouble initiating conversations with peers, but you can encourage casual interactions with a simple match-up game. Provide all students with differently colored shapes cut form construction paper. Include blue circles, green circles, green squares, green triangles, and so on, so that there are both shape and color pairs. Have children dance around the room to music. When the music stops, tells students to form same-shape or same-color groups. The children then must answer a getting-to-known-you question like, "Tell your group your favorite ice cream flavor."
Similarities and Differences
Elementary school children understand that while differences make individuals unique, people are often very similar in likes and dislikes. Demonstrate this with a game about preferences. Mark a line of tape on the floor of your classroom, and then read a series of statements that begin with the phrase "Cross the line if-." You might finish with statements like, "-if you've ever broken a bone" or "-if you like music more than television." After students have crossed or not crossed, have them discuss their choice with the others on their side. A variation on this activity is four corners, in which four areas of the room are designated for different answers to a multiple choice question.
Interview Activities
With older children, more formal interview-style activities encourage thoughtful interactions. Combine a getting acquainted interview with a literacy activity. Invite kids to form pairs with a child they don't know very well. A list of questions about basic interests, family members, and special skills provides a template for conducting an interview. After partners finish their interview, have each person prepare a booklet about their new friend, or have a class presentation in which partners introduce each other to the class.
Fun Facts and Secrets
Learning an unexpected fact about a peer can be the start of a new friendship. One option is to ask children to anonymously write several fun facts about themselves on strips of paper. An adult then mixes up the papers and reads one at a time to the group. Children then vote on which of their peers they believe wrote the fun fact. Another version of the game is truths and lies. Children write three statements on their papers, two of which are true and one of which is made up. They then read their paper out loud, and other children have to guess which statements are true and which are false.