On the first day of class for classes of about 15 students or less, I like to play the familiar game "snowball sentence".
I ask the person sitting on my right to tell me their name and their hobby.
"Hi, I'm Lucy and I like skiing". Then I say, "This is Lucy and she likes skiing. I'm Karen and I like drawing". And we go around the room, each person introducing everyone who has spoken on their right. Usually I try to WOW them by naming everyone and their hobbies as the last person to take a turn, but sometimes that backfires
Still, it's very fun.
To get people who have answered early to continue to participate, you can allow students to
mime hints to others who are having trouble remembering.
As a follow up you can have students write down either 3-5 sentences following the pattern: "
NAME likes
HOBBY (ie. Karen like drawing. Lucy likes skiing, etc) or if you're
that kind of teacher you can challenge them to remember as many as possible. Perhaps a prize for the winner is in order?