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50+ Silly First Day of School Interview Questions to Ask Your Kids
Published 8/26/26
We have all seen the first day of school photo a hundred times: a kid standing in front of the door holding a little chalkboard sign, dressed in their first-day-of-school outfit, smiling for the camera. And we LOVE IT! So this year we are also adding an interview to go along with it. We are going to let the photo do the earnest talking and ask the silly questions.
But first, What Is a First Day of School Interview?
A first day of school interview is a quick, fun tradition where you ask your kid a set list of questions right before (or right after) their first day, snap a photo or video of their answers, and repeat it every year. Done consistently, it turns into one of the most requested pages in your kid's yearly photo book. It’s a record of not just how tall they got, but how their brain worked at 6, 9, 13.
Most versions online lean serious: favorite color, what do you want to be when you grow up, best friend's name. All very good questions. The silly version gets a lot more interesting answers, and shows more of their personality.
Silly questions work because they lower the stakes. There's no wrong answer, no performance pressure, and no chance your kid gives you the same flat "I don't know" they give every other question you ask them in the car.
Silly First Day of School Interview Questions to Ask This Year
Grab a notebook, a camera, or just your phone, and work through however many of these your kid has patience for (five is plenty for a five-year-old, twenty is fair game for a chatty ten-year-old).
About this school year
- If this school year had a theme song, what would it be?
- What's one rule you'd make if you were the teacher for a day?
- If your backpack could talk, what would it complain about?
- What's the weirdest thing you'd bring for show-and-tell if there were no rules?
- If recess lasted all day, what would you build, invent, or start?
- What's one thing you hope does NOT happen this year?
- If you could trade lunches with anyone in the world for a day, who would it be?
- What's the silliest name you could give your class if you were in charge of naming it?
About their teacher and classroom
- If your teacher were secretly a superhero, what would their power be?
- What's one thing you think your teacher does when no kids are around?
- If your classroom had a mascot, what animal would it be and why?
- What's a rule you think your teacher secretly wishes they could break?
- If your teacher gave homework in only one subject forever, which one would you pick to keep and which would you banish?
About themselves (the silly version)
- If you were a school supply, which one would you be?
- What's your current best joke?
- If you could have any animal live in your desk, what would it be?
- What's one food you'd never, ever want to find in your lunch box?
- If you had to give yourself a nickname this year, what would it be?
- What's the weirdest dream you've had recently?
- If you could only speak in one voice/accent all year, what would you pick?
- What's one thing about you that would surprise your teacher?
Would-you-rather school edition
- Would you rather have homework that's 10 minutes of math or 30 minutes of extra recess with a catch?
- Would you rather have a talking backpack or shoes that never untie?
- Would you rather sit next to the class clown or the class genius?
- Would you rather have school start an hour earlier or end an hour later?
- Would you rather eat the same lunch every day for a year or trade lunches blindly with a random classmate every day?
Totally random
- If you had a magic pencil this year, what would you want it to do?
- What's one word you'd use to describe this year before it's even started?
- If your school had a secret underground level, what would be down there?
- What's the most useless superpower you'd still want to have at school?
- If you could switch places with a teacher for one class period, which subject and why?
- What's the funniest thing that could realistically happen on the bus this year?
How to Actually Keep These Answers
These answers are hilarious for about a week, then they disappear into a random note, a buried video, or nowhere at all because you were too busy getting everyone out the door to write them down.
Not this year! Make a Chatbook out of it. Snap the photo, jot down their best answers right after, and start the book with that first-day photo and interview. Add to it throughout the year, and by June, you've got a full yearbook of their whole school year, ending with the last-day photo, so you can see exactly how much they grew in nine months. (tear drop.)
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