Share an Object From Home

Activity

Introductory activities, Warm up activities

Share an Object From Home

Maha Bali

This is a simple icebreaker activity that encourages students to share something about themselves.

Tech needed: Objects

Asynchronous

Duration: 5-30 mins

Student preparation: None

Educator preparation: None

ACTIVITY PURPOSE

Students share a meaningful object, photo, or link that represents something personal or course-related. The activity builds connection, encourages reflection, and fosters a welcoming, inclusive classroom community.

USEFUL FOR

Introductions, warm up, and personal sharing with agency.

PREPARATION

Let students know ahead of time what you want them to ‘bring’ with them to the class session, whether a digital or physical object.

INSTRUCTIONS

Ask students ahead of time (e.g. one class session or week before you meet them) to prepare to share with the class one object from home or a photo or online space that represents something. For example, it could be something that supports their wellbeing – and so it could be an object at home they use (e.g. yoga matt, baking pan) or it could be a photo (e.g. of a place that relaxes them or of themselves having fun somewhere) or an online space (E.g. a social media account they follow that they go to for their wellbeing or that they enjoy).
Synchronously, students can each share their object or photo or link, one by one, and others comment.
Asynchronously, students can post photos or links on a shared Google doc with a short explanation or on their own blogs.

DURATION

If done synchronously, it could take 2-3 minutes per participant in a large group. It can be done asynchronously, but if it matters for students to give feedback or comments on each others, make sure you encourage them to do so.

ADAPTATIONS AND EXAMPLES

Students can share via chat, uploading pictures inside the video conferencing tool, or you can set up Google docs/slides where photos and links can be inserted. Or you can have students screenshare and show things or use their camera directly to show an object or show a photo from their phone, for example.
You can use this activity for pretty much any topic – for very young kids learning geometry, they can bring an object from home that is a square or cube or such. For any discipline, it can be something connected to the course – e.g. if learning about identity, it could be an object that represents an element of your identity; if learning about advertising, it could be a link to one of their favorite ads; if learning about food chemistry, it could be a recipe or item at home that represents something students are learning about food chemistry; if journalism or political science or business or economics it could be a headline from a news site relevant to the topic of the date
Another variation could be to have this as a regular thing you do every class, but have different students responsible for sharing each class session. So for example, 2-4 students each class session share for the first 10 minutes of class.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Just a space to share photos like Slack, Google docs, Google slides, or your own synchronous class tool that allows uploading photos or screensharing or sharing of links.

USEFUL RESOURCES

Do you have any suggestions? Please share them in the comments below.