12 Fun And Educational Back to School Activities For Children

The beginning of the academic year offers a fresh opportunity to re-engage children, foster connections, and cultivate a joyful learning environment.

Carefully designed back to school activities for children foster community building, ease transitions, and even relieve anxiety. These activities become essential as children learn new routines, interact with peers, and face academic challenges. Let’s delve in!

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12 Back to School Activities for Children
Start a Fun and Fulfilled School Year with UNIS Hanoi

12 Back to School Activities for Children

Below are 12 fun and purposeful back to school activities for children that will help develop creativity, social competencies, and emotional intelligence.

1. Name Tag Challenge

This classic activity serves as an icebreaker and a creative exercise. Children make personalised name tags with their interests or fun facts, which helps them remember names and start dialogues and friendships.

UNIS Hanoi students participate in a name tag gallery walk to learn about peers and to showcase their creations. We display the name tags for the first two weeks so all children can feel appreciated and understood, and also to foster inclusivity.

2. Pretend Play

For younger children, pretend play helps develop imagination, collaboration, and expression of feelings. They tell stories about new experiences and act them out through symbols.

At UNIS Hanoi, programs like “visiting the library” or “lunchtime routines” mitigate student anxieties by offering developmentally appropriate, playful scaffolding within the school’s context.

3. Classroom Scavenger Hunts

A scavenger hunt is a dynamic and interactive way for children to become familiar with their learning environment. It introduces them to the physical layout of the classroom while encouraging independence learning and problem-solving.

At UNIS Hanoi, we design customised scavenger hunts that highlight key areas such as reading corners, student cubbies, art stations, and learning centres. This builds comfort with the space and supports organisational skills and early autonomy.

4. Emotional Charades

Emotional charades activity promotes emotional literacy, social awareness, and communication skills. Children act out different emotions while their peers guess what they are portraying. It helps develop empathy, emotional vocabulary, and an understanding of non-verbal cues.

Students at UNIS engage in active wellbeing curricula, which involves charades as a means to simulate and comprehend social-emotional interactions and express feelings.

5. “Would You Rather” Questions

Engaging students in playful yet insightful “Would You Rather” questions promotes decision-making, perspective-taking, and thoughtful consideration while encouraging constructive reasoning and friendly arguments.

At UNIS Hanoi, we create school and routine-related questions like, “Would you rather work alone or in a group?” or “Would you rather learn outside or inside?”

The response helps to reflect on student character and strengthen community relations through shared laughter and exploration.

6. Free Dance

Free dance sessions offer a joyful and uninhibited outlet for physical expression. They allow students to move their bodies, reduce stress, and celebrate movement.

At UNIS Hanoi, integrating movement and music during breaks offers various benefits, especially during the first weeks of school. It helps to improve brain function, support gross motor development, and enhance the atmosphere within the classroom.

These sessions are often student-led, giving children the opportunity to take initiative and feel empowered.

7. Animal Yoga

Animal-themed yoga focuses on physical awareness and helps to calm and engage children, while encouraging them to regulate their emotions. Poses like “downward dog”, “cat-cow”, and “lion’s breath” are simple, imaginative, and easily achievable.

At UNIS Hanoi, the wellbeing program includes regular yoga classes which focus on mindfulness, breath work, and physical grounding. These yoga sessions are helpful in easing students into learning routines and self-regulation.

8. Decorate Classroom Challenge

Fostering contribution to class decoration helps enhance and cultivate an identity besides belonging and shared ownership. It turns the classroom into children’s space which represents their identity and ideas.

At UNIS Hanoi, every class starts the year with collaborative art projects, like vision boards, motivational murals, and welcoming posters. These class decorations, reflecting shared values and student ambitions, evolve alongside the students throughout the school year.

9. Find A Friend Challenge

This activity promotes social interaction among students to work together, reflect, and celebrate differences. Checklist prompts for certain attributes, such as “has a pet”, “can speak more than one language”, or “has traveled internationally” encourage interactions, with students talking to multiple peers.

At UNIS Hanoi, the celebration of cultural diversity helps nurture curiosity about people and builds bonds across students’ different backgrounds and interests.

10. Group Contracts

The creation of group or class agreements fosters respect and responsibility among members. This activity empowers them to shape classroom norms, fostering peer respect and constructive engagement in their learning environment.

At UNIS Hanoi, students participate in conversations to set out fundamental guiding principles such as empathy, kindness, patience, and integrity. The classroom contracts that capture these agreements are masterfully decorated, and they are signed by everyone, depicting their promise to uphold a safe and supportive environment for all.

11. Draw a Self-Portrait

With this task, students get the chance to shape and reflect on their own identities. Students draw themselves, incorporating favorite things and symbols that reflect their aspirations.

As UNIS Hanoi, all students’ self portraits are displayed with short biographies to help their peers and teachers understand each child. The artworks are often revisited later in the year for reflection on progress and changes in self perception.

12. Back to School Bingo

This light-hearted game uses a bingo-style format with personalised prompts such as “has a younger sibling”, “plays a musical instrument”, or “loves science”. It”s a highly effective way to get children moving and engaging in structured conversations with different classmates.

At UNIS Hanoi, we adapt the bingo cards to include community themes and school values, using the activity to break down social barriers and encourage inclusive participation in the early days of the school term.

Start a Fun and Fulfilled School Year with UNIS Hanoi

At UNIS Hanoi, our thoughtfully designed back to school activities for children are not just engaging, they are a vital foundation for social-emotional growth, academic readiness, and a sense of belonging.

We are proud to offer an internationally-minded education where every student is nurtured as an individual and celebrated as part of a vibrant learning community. Apply to UNIS Hanoi and give your child the confidence and connection they need to flourish in the year ahead.