Get to know classmates, campmates, or clubmates by interviewing each other. Connect with new friends and stand them up in colorfully creative categories!

• 1.

  It could be the new school year, start of summer camp, or beginning of a new club. How do kids get to know each other? Try these cool interviews!

• 2.

  Choose questions. What would you and your classmates like to know about each other? In small groups, narrow down ideas to questions with four choices for answers. For example, "In what season is your birthday?" can be answered by fall, winter, spring, or summer. Choose one new question a week for at least the first 4 weeks of school.

• 3.

  Interview your partner. Ask each other questions and record your partner's answers in a mini notebook with Crayola® Erasable Colored Pencils. If you make a mistake, they erase easily!

• 4.

  On a recycled file folder, use the colored pencils and Crayola Gel Markers to draw and color a small, realistic stand-up figure of your partner. Cut it out with Crayola Scissors. Cut a strip of file folder to make a half-circle stand. Cut slits in the base and put your figure in its stand.

• 5.

  Create interview boxes. In four teams, coordinate assignments to design recycled tissue boxes. Decorate each side to represent one of the four answers to each week’s interview question. Use Crayola Twistables, colored pencils, and markers on paper to make symbols and scenes depicting the four choices. Make them 3-D and as colorful as possible. Attach decorations with Crayola Glue Sticks.

• 6.

  Display your findings. Partners place each other’s figures beside the box depicting the correct answer to the interview question of the week. Who shares similar interests? Get to know your new friends!

• 7.

  Repeat for the next 3 weeks. Want to continue with more interviews? Just choose more questions, decorate more boxes, and do more interviews!

Standards

• LA: Participate in shared research and writing projects.
• LA: With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing.
• LA: Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences.
• MATH: Draw a picture graph or a bar graph (with single-unit scale) to represent a data set with up to four categories.
• VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.
• VA: Select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning.

Adaptations

• Students collaborate to compose interview questions to be used as a guide when interviewing someone.
• Summarize data from each week's question by creating bar graphs. Students analyze the results represented in the bar graphs. Ask what types of information can be gained from the data collected?
• Each student can prepare a speech to introduce the person interviewed. Practice the speech with a partner and ask for a critique.
• Students extend interview skills by composing additional questions and interviewing a local community member about his career, education, family history, etc. Students create a "Get to Know" box representing the community member and present findings to classmates. Can they guess what career you are describing?