Children sit in a circle with one child holding a ball. The ball holder says his name and passes the ball to the child on the right, who does the same thing. This continues until the ball has made it around the circle and everyone has been introduced. Now the first child must say something he likes, which can be anything from a cartoon, to a type of candy, to riding his bike. Then he must say the name of someone else in the circle and roll the ball to that child. The game continues until you feel that everyone has learned a lot about their new classmates.
Set up a large bowl, large spoon, marshmallows, yogurt, a variety of fruit, and one old, rotten banana. Have the children gather around while you make a fruit salad. Tell the children that the classroom and bowl are alike; to make it nice you need to add nice things. Every time you put an ingredient in explain to the class what it represents; for example, say "these are the children who try their best at their schoolwork," or "these are the polite children who say please and thank you," as you drop in some slices of apple. Leave the banana until last and say to the class, "Should we add this old, rotten banana into the bowl?" The class will shout for you not to. Explain to them that the banana represents bad traits, such as being selfish or picking on other children, and just as the banana would ruin the salad, behaving badly ruins a happy classroom.
Sit the children around a table and supply them with a variety of art equipment, such as paint, glue, glitter and crayons. Play some music for 30 seconds; in that time each child should start to create her artwork. After the 30 seconds are up stop the music and shout "freeze." Each child passes her piece of paper to the right. If all of the children could not fit on one table, one person in each group must walk to another table to drop off her paper. Now the music starts again and each child must pick up where the previous artist left off. This continues until the artwork is back where it started. Now each child has a piece of art that the whole class helped to create.
As the end of the day draws near, have the children paint a picture of their first day of school; this will make a meaningful keepsake for parents. Or the children could play a game of truth and lie. Sit the children in a circle and ask each child to tell the class something true about himself and also a lie. The other children must guess which of the statements is a lie. Explain to the children that this is a game so it's OK to lie, but it's wrong to do it at other times. You could also pair off the children and ask them to interview each other. The children can ask whatever questions they like but give them some ideas of what to ask before the interviews, such as, "Do you have any pets?" or "What is your favorite color?" When the interviews are over each child reports to the class as much as he can remember about his partner.