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Icebreaker Back To School Battle Brackets

Start a back-to-school conversation with Battle Brackets. Students compare choices, share preferences and explain which option they want to advance.
Grades
Grades 3–6
Pages
6
File type
Google Slide
Editable
Yes

Updated Aug 11, 2023

Subject
Social Emotional Learning (SEL)
Topic
Icebreakers, Back to school
Resource types
Games
Editable
Yes

Product description

From the author

In this resource, you will really get to know your students and they will get to know each other! This is a set of icebreaker battle bracket templates. There are 4 topics; snacks, sports, summer activities, and music genres. There is a blank one and all templates are fully editable as this is a Google Slides Presentation. You will download the PDF and click on the image and this will prompt you to "Make a copy", and you will click "Yes". This is great for a back-to-school activity, a brain break for your class, or an icebreaker when you have a new group of students or a new group for advisory. This really is for multiple ages-even adults-even staff meetings!

The summer activity template is great for the first week of school as summer will be fresh on the students' minds and this will help them transition into fall and school. There are 8 summer themes that will be competing with one another (they are two paired together as a bracket). The summer themes are water sports versus land sports, pools versus the beach, BBQ versus picnics, and camping versus hotels. For the snacks, there are fruits versus veggies, chips versus pretzels, trail mix versus protein bars, and candy versus cookies. For the music themes, there is hip hop/rap versus techno/dance, country versus classical, pop versus rock, and alternative/indie versus jazz. There is a sports-themed one that includes; basketball versus football, volleyball versus soccer, tennis versus golf, and hockey versus baseball.

There is a blank one in case you would like to create your own template that relates personally to your particular subject such as art, spanish, math, science, biology, social studies, etc. There are directions that will walk you through how to implement the battle brackets. Simply put you can use this as a whole class or small groups.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

  • Express a preference between two choices

  • Explain a choice during group discussion

  • Participate in a bracket-style comparison routine

Teaching tips

  • Make a personal copy of the linked Slides file before editing.

  • Print one bracket per student or group to record each round’s results.

  • Invite reasons for preferences and keep discussion respectful.

Skills covered

  • Icebreaker discussion — preferences support introductions.

  • Comparative choice — options advance through brackets.

  • Oral reasoning — learners explain selected choices.

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Resource details

Concepts & topics

Core concepts

  • Back-to-school icebreaker

  • Battle brackets

  • Preference discussion

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