I don’t know about you, but the first week of school is always the most stressful for me! I hear teachers talking about being “teacher tired” at the end of the school year… I think that’s nothing compared to beginning of year! Who’s with me?
Other than setting up my classroom, lesson planning for the first week is what stresses me out the most! I’m the type of person who thrives on routine, so the time of the year where my students haven’t learned our classroom procedures is stressful.
To help have smooth transition back to school, I am very intentional with my first week of school. The activities that I do each day center around building relationships, teaching procedures, and minimizing downtime.
Here’s a rundown of some of my most important activities from my first week of school!
Build relationships with your students and let them know you’re a human.
Tell the students facts about yourself
I know some teachers do a cute “About Me” handout for students/parents but I like to keep it even simpler. Instead I do a simple PowerPoint slide as soon as I’ve done attendance and gotten everyone settled on the first day. It takes maybe 5 minutes but it gives students a few facts that they can either a) relate to or b) think are interesting.
The facts that my students love to hear about the most are my pets! Throughout the first week (and even during the rest of the year), I will tell stories about my pets almost daily. I also put them in word problems or other activities and the students love it!
About Me activities for students
There are a TON of Back to School “About Me” activities all over the internet! There are so many ways you can do this!
For my classes, I make a large index card for each student that I teach. I use these throughout the first week to show where students should sit each day and to call on students. I’ve even taken students’ photos with their cards so that I can study names and faces in my free time.
I also have students add information to their cards! Here is the “About Me” activity that I have my students complete using their cards (source:Capturing Kids Hearts):
Once students have added information to their cards, they pair up and share with a partner. I also take up the cards to look over, so that I’ll have some facts to ask each student about during personal conversations!
Set expectations and explicitly teach procedures.
Create a Social Contract with your class
This is another idea that I’ve adopted this year from Capturing Kids Hearts! I asked the students how they wanted to be treated by me, how they wanted to be treated by each other, and how they thought I wanted to be treated by them. Then we made a list of words that came up. Any words that came up more than once received a check mark. Then we signed our contract and have referred back to it constantly!
Procedure Stations
I originally got this idea from Asti at The 615 Teacher and then made it work for my classroom. I teach all of my procedures explicitly in the beginning of the year. However there are some things that either only need a few minutes’ worth of focus or require students to be able to move around the room.
Around the third or fourth day of school, I like to have students go through a set of procedure stations. As they move from station to station, they fill out a sheet that checks for their understanding. Once they have completed all of the stations, we review the procedures as a class to make sure that they understand.
These are the stations that I use:
- Brochure– students read over my brochure (essentially a syllabus) to get an idea of what we will do this year
- One Word– students decorate an index card with one word that represents the type of person they want to be this year
- Absent Area– students learn the expectations for making up work
- Pencil Sharpener– my pencil sharpener involves a little bit of practice, so students practice how to use it
- Library– students learn some expectations for the classroom library and choose a few titles they’re interested in reading
- Agenda & Class Jobs– students look over the whiteboard that I use for our daily agenda and weekly class jobs
- Survey– students take a Google survey to help me get to know them
Some of the stations take longer than others, so I always put a set of math flash cards at each for students to practice if they’re waiting.
Don’t allow for much down time.
Have easy tasks for students to complete if they finish something early.
During the year, you may have procedures in place for when students finish work early, but these are going to look different during the beginning of the year. I try to have some easy things ready that students don’t need a lot of instructions to complete.
- Flash Cards- students always need extra practice on their math facts, so why not take advantage of this time?
- Word Searches- I love to have the students complete word searches that have topics that we’ll learn this year or even their classmates names!
- Coloring Activities- coloring can be relaxing, which helps many students during this time of year. Below is a set of coloring bookmarks that I’ve had at students’ tables to pull out and color when they finish activities.
Have review activities ready if your plans don’t take as long as you thought they would.
Are there certain topics that you know your students are going to need to review before you start your content? For my students, 4th grade multi-digit multiplication concepts are really huge for my 5th graders to review!
To help my students review this year, I created a Back to School Escape Room to break up the monotony of review! My students have a blast when doing escape rooms!
I have created 4 different versions of this escape room to cover multiple grade levels. Click each photo to access the product!
As you go through your first few weeks of school, I encourage you to be intentional with your planning! There are so many fun activities we can do during the first few weeks but we need to think about their purpose. What are your favorite back to school activities? Let me know in the comments!
