A common aspect of leadership is welcoming and onboarding new staff, and it can be challenging to bring them into an established group or team. I have the privilege of leading a group of 7 amazing technology coaches and for the upcoming school year we are welcoming 3 new coaches to our group. In this post, I'd like to share how I used "Curate a Custom Canvas" from Creative Activities for Students as team-building, an ice-breaker, and team visioning all in one.
Knowing that this team returns in late July and jumps straight into our district PL conference, new hire onboarding, and back to school support for all staff, I wanted to take some time before school lets out to bring the whole group together. We gathered for one full day shortly before the last day of school with the intent to get to know each other a bit and break the ice, while also bringing the 3 new team members into our culture, vision, and mission. I shared the "Curate a Custom Canvas" project with the group and gave them the following prompt:
- Represent everyone on the team
- Add team details - ex: vision, mission, and values of the team, strengths, favorite tools
- Work together to design - everyone adds to it
By giving them a low-risk, guided activity they were able to jump right into to creating together and getting to know each other. I love how it turned out!
May 19, 2025
Thanks, Morgan, for sharing your team-building process! It was very helpful and seemed quite seamless. Agree that it is crucial to initiate team collaboration and visioning before the start of school. A very good application of Freeform!
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