Find Someone Who............

Before creating my seating chart and making groups, I decided to take an activity I found from a master teacher on betterlessons and use it. We've also played a similar game during a PD on Overcoming Obstacles. It's a game (or at least I framed it as such) called find someone who, in which the following sheet is used:

A lot of groupwork is going to be done in my class and students have to be able to work together and cooperate with one another. I wanted them to see that although they are all unique, they also have plenty of similar qualities and can get to know one another. Watching students get to know each other was fascinating:

Students go around asking their classmates to sign one of the boxes that applies to them until they get one full row of signatures, either vertically or horizontally. However, my goal was simply for students to get to know one another, so the goal was to gather as many different signatures as you can in 10 minutes. I think this goes a long way towards the students being able to work well with one another, and even if it has nothing to do with math, it does help them break the ice with each other and make a new friend in their first week of 6th grade.