First week of school activities are always a little bit chaotic. There are new students to meet, procedures to go over, and material to introduce. It’s a lot to juggle! It’s also your chance to set the tone for the rest of the year with some key lessons on how we treat each other. Here are some ideas to start the year off with some fun and engaging activities to help start to feel comfortable in their new classroom and get to know new classmates.
Set the Stage with SEL
Sprinkle a little social-emotional learning throughout your first week of school activities to help everyone feel safe, comfortable, and valued as part of their new classroom community. Here are some tried and true favorites:
- Read the book First Day Jitters. Make sure to pause and ask questions as you read to help students make predictions and personal connections throughout the story. The ending is sure to surprise your students if they haven’t heard this story before! After reading, give each student a sticky note and ask them to write down any jitters they have for this school year. Calm any anxiety about sharing the “jitters” by letting them know that they are the only ones who will read these notes. As a fun treat, you can serve jitter juice for them to enjoy and keep their jitters away by mixing a little green drink mix and sprite. Finally have students fold the sticky note and put it in a glitter-decorated “Jitter Jar”. Seal the jar up for safekeeping!
- Do a lesson to differentiate between fair and equal as part of your first week of school activities: Have each student makes up a pretend boo-boo on a part of their skin that is already showing based on the clothes they are wearing that day. Start with the first student and ask “Oh no, what happened?” Have that student tell you how they got their pretend injury. Offer words of caring such as “I’m so very sorry that happened. Here’s a bandaid. I hope you feel better soon!” Then put a band-aid on their pretend boo-boo. For the sake of this explanation, let’s say the first student said the injury was on their elbow. Continue around the room and let each student tell you about their injury. No matter where they say their injury is, offer the same words of caring and put a bandaid on their elbow. This is sure to get everyone laughing and scratching their heads but at the end, ask them if they all got what they needed. They will say no, but this is a great opening to remind them they got the same words of caring and a bandaid-you treated them all equally. Someone is sure to point out that you didn’t put their bandaid in the right place, which leads to a great talk about fair versus equal. Giving other students what they need, many times means it will be different than what they need, and that’s OK.
- Read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes as part of your first week of school activities. Have a large cut-out heart handy as you read. Each time someone says something that hurts Chrysanthemum’s feelings, have one of the students come up and rip a small piece of the heart off. You can also use tape or bandaids to tape pieces of the heart back together when one of Chrysanthemum’s says something nice. This will end up making the heart whole again, but the heart isn’t the same as when you started–it has scars. Then you can lead the class it a discussion about the power of words. To help the students remember the lesson write “Before you speak, think and be smart. It’s hard to mend a broken heart.” on the paper heart and hang it somewhere in the room as a visual reminder. This book is also a great lead into a get-to-know-you activity. Give students the “homework” of asking their parents why they were given their chosen name. Then have the kids share the next day.
Getting-to-Know-You Activities
First week of school activities are a perfect time to get to know your students. Here are a few of our favorite activities to help you break the ice:
- Play All About Me Bingo. This activity is a great way for students to learn more about their classmates—and for you to learn more about them, too! Before class starts, prepare a list of possible descriptions for their classmates such as ” likes to play soccer,” “has a sister in middle school,” or “can speak another language.” Have them mix and mingle to find classmates who fit each description as they work to create a Bingo or a Blackout.
- Use Ice Breaker Task Cards as part of your first week of school activities. Introduce a favorite cooperative learning structure such Quiz-Quiz-Trade using this free deck full of fun get-to-know-you questions.
- Do some sort of all about me project as part of your first week of school activities. There are so many great FREE All About Me banners, pennants, posters, and projects on TPT. Go find one that works for you or simply hand out blank art paper and let students fill it with a collage of people, things, and places that they love!
Procedures and Routines
Part of your first week of school activities should start setting your routines and procedures that will help the rest of the year run smoothly.
My absolute favorite routine to establish on day one is class read-aloud time. I like to use this as the transition time after recess. I start on day one by reading for 10 minutes from my favorite read-aloud to start the year–Frindle! I also like to model what some of our novel study routines will be throughout the year, by introducing them as whole-class activities while we work our way through Frindle. Check out this complete guide to Frindle!
Also, don’t forget to spend some time getting into the nitty gritty and establishing some classroom procedures during our first week of school activities. These are the things that will keep your classroom running smoothly all year long, so it’s important to take some time on this early on. Here are a few procedures and routines you might want to consider establishing:
- How do we line up for lunch/recess?
- Where do we put our backpacks when we come into the classroom in the morning?
- How do we raise our hand if we need help?
- What do we do if we finish our work early?
Don’t try to cover everything all at once! Just pick a few procedures or routines that you think are most important and focus on those. Then add on as the first few days and weeks unroll.
Phew! Those were a lot of first week of school activities packed into one blog post! But if you take away nothing else from these keys to first week of school success, remember this—the first week of school doesn’t have to be perfect; it just needs to set a tone for the weeks to come! So take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy getting back into the swing of things.