5 Ready-to-Go Solutions to Simplify the First Week Of School
What comes to mind when you think about the first week of school? Feelings of excitement as you wait to meet the small humans with whom you ‘ll be spending this year? Anxious moments as you work your way through a never-ending list of to-do’s and wonder if you’ll be ready in time? Unsettled by memories of levels of exhaustion that only teachers in the first week of school feel?
The first week of school can run smoothly.
Your goals for the first week of school are simple. Build community, establish routines, and get to know your students as people and as learners. But as you know, simple doesn’t mean easy. What if you could make that first week easier on you and more valuable for your students? You can - and I’m here to help with five ready-to-go resources!
5 Ready-to-Go Solutions To Make The First Week Of School Easier On You
1. Build community and practice important skills with a Back to School Activity Pack
Building community in your classroom is one of the most important things you can do to set the tone for a great school year!
Use this Back to School Activity Pack to build community, collect initial writing samples, and provide meaningful activities for students to work on while you complete essential beginning of year assessments. As a bonus, they’re fun for you and your students! The pack contains ten “get to know you” and community building activities - enough for the first two weeks of school.
Get to know you activities:
Friend Detective - Students use their “detective skills” to interview a classmate they don’t know. They use that information to complete a Venn diagram that shows the ways they and their new friend are alike and different and use that information to introduce their new friend to the class.
Time Capsule - Learn more about your students and collect their first writing sample. Complete in class or send home for homework. Tip: this is a perfect way to keep students busy with meaningful work while you conduct beginning of the year assessments.
Meet and Greet - Break the ice and get your students up and moving. Students walk around the room asking each other questions until they find someone who fits each description.
Snowballs - Students write a fact about themselves, then crumple up their papers and throw them across the room. They then run to find a “snowball” near them and read what’s written on it. After they write down the new fact on their recording sheet, it’s off to find another snowball. This continues until each student has ten new facts written down. Warning - this is a sure fire way to warm up a quiet class!
Read aloud activities:
Start reading aloud with your class as soon as possible. Share your love of books and help instill a love of reading in them! Reading aloud presents so many opportunities to discuss important topics, generate new ideas, and grow together. This activity pack includes five read aloud activities that accompany books you likely have in your classroom or building library. I’m going to highlight two of them here.
“Those Shoes” by Maribeth Boelts - As a class, discuss ways in which having a friend is better than having anything else. Students identify those things they want most (new video game, special shoes, etc.) and then write how having a friend would be even better than receiving those items.
“The Incredible Book Eating Boy” by Oliver Jeffers - As a class, discuss what you love so much you would eat it if possible. Students draw a picture of themselves eating parts of what they love and write several paragraphs describing their drawings.
2. Encourage students to take ownership with Job Cards
When the goal is making your life as a teacher easier, classroom jobs need to be part of the plan. Classroom jobs help students build a sense of ownership in the classroom as well as encourage responsibility for their environment. And best of all, they take things off your plate!
This resource includes cards with 24 of the most common classroom job titles and descriptions. There is also an editable document if you would like to assign a job that is not listed.
Rather than assigning jobs to students, use the included job application to allow students to nominate themselves for a job they’d like to perform. This is a great way to get in some persuasive writing practice as students tell you why they’re the best candidate for the job.
Lessen your workload and watch your classroom run more smoothly (and maybe even stay more organized) when students take ownership of their learning environment.
3. Build community and writing skills with Kindness Writing activities
What if you had a simple activity students could complete month after month with little direction? What if that activity not only built community and positivity within your classroom but also provided valuable writing skills practice?
Sound too good to be true?
It’s not!
Use this resource to teach the interconnected ideas of kindness, mindfulness, and thankfulness simply. Each month, students reflect on how others have shown them kindness. They write about how they felt and then give thanks by writing a note to that person.
This monthly themed writing bundle includes 10 resources that all follow the same simple procedure - making this a no-prep activity for you that delivers a TON of value. You decide how it works best in your classroom - as a whole class activity, in your writing center, or as an early-finisher activity.
Read this blog post to learn more about how I introduce kindness writing to students and how to make this a repeatable, valuable part of your classroom culture.
4. Make mornings matter with Morning Work Slides.
Do you have a morning work routine to kick off each day? Do your students know what to do? Are they working their way toward being productive and independent?
Mornings in your classroom are busy. You are greeting students, taking attendance, answering questions, checking emails, and making last minute preparations for the day. Establishing a morning work routine - one that requires little to no involvement from you - is one way to make mornings easier. Done well, it’s also a way to maximize learning time and minimize messing around time!
This resource keeps students productive, increases their independence, and reduces your workload. These slides are the perfect low-to-no-prep resource for starting your day. Simply add a few notes and project the slides before students enter your classroom.
Find a full month of response prompts organized by week. Each week includes five daily prompts focused around a single theme. Each day’s prompt builds on those that came before.
Remember, the goal is to find ways to make teaching easier, especially during those first weeks of a new school year. Establishing a morning work routine that takes little to no time to prep is a great way to work toward achieving that goal.
5. Establish center and small group routines with Read Aloud Mini-Units.
I’ve talked many times about the importance of systems in your classroom.
Systems save time. They create consistency.
In other words, systems just plain work. The beginning of the year is the best time to establish systems and routines, including those around centers and small group work.
This ready-to-use resource is a simple way to start centers or small group work at the beginning of the year. Using highly engaging texts and requiring little to no prep, use this resource to teach (or review) how to make inferences, draw conclusions, identify character traits, and more. You’ll also cover compare and contrast, summary, and sequencing.
Perfect as a center activity, let this resource help you establish systems and routines your students will follow all year.
Commit to making the first weeks of school easier on you. Careful planning now will reduce your workload and increase your excitement about starting a new year. I hope you’ll try out some of these resources and let them do a lot of the work for you.
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