Here are the 5 most powerful activities for first day of high school that will liven up your class and eliminate the boredom.

It's time to go back to school! With the back-to-school season upon us, it is time to start planning back-to-school activities for the first week of school.

Why I don't review the syllabus on the first day of class in high school and what I do instead. Fun first day of school activities and icebreakers!

What a concept: using SNOW to break the ICE on the first day of school! When I first heard about this cool idea from a cousin who attended a reunion for her husband’s side of the family, I kn…

Of of the most engaging and interactive ways to start the new school year is by facilitating a back-to-school station activity in your classroom. Using back-to-school stations as a classroom activity during the first week of school a great way to get your students up and interacting with each other. Furthermore, back-to-school stations are also great for getting to know your students and handing out important class information.

Are you looking for a brand new Back to School activity? Are you wanting to build community in your classroom? This I'm One Smart Cookie all about me booklet is perfect! It provides you with a great way to get to know your students AND gives you ideas for using the craft to build community! What's ...

This post includes 5 back-to-school activities to establish procedures, build relationships, and set the tone for the rest of the year.

Much like students who spend more hours on the hook of an essay than they do the bulk of an essay, I often found myself with a case of English teacher writing block when it came to planning my first day of school activities. Though I have ten years (x two semesters each) of ... Read More about First Day of School Activities for High School and Middle School English

First day of school activities to get to know your high school students and set yourself and them up for a successful year! 3 x Worksheet PDF's ready to download and print!

The first day of school is full of so many things: anticipation, wide-eyes, school supplies, new faces, maybe a few butterflies. And I...

Check out these ideas for your first day of Spanish 1 activities! Engage students and encourage them IN SPANISH - even beginner Spanish classes!

Hi there! I have been slacking on the blogging lately. When summer started I was upset that I was not going to be teaching summer school, ...

5 creative first day of school activities for high school English so you can ditch the syllabus and start getting to know your students!

This geometry activity for the first day of school is a great way to assess students' prior knowledge. It is a fun and free way to pre-test them! Click to..

Here are the 5 most powerful activities for first day of high school that will liven up your class and eliminate the boredom.

This geometry activity for the first day of school is a great way to assess students' prior knowledge. It is a fun and free way to pre-test them! Click to..

It's the first week of Phys Ed and the start of a new school year which means a clean slate and new beginnings. The start of the school year is key because it sets the

I hate cheesy name games and I refuse to make the worst first impression by just reading a syllabus to my students. The solution is this engaging first day of school stations activity designed to facilitate discussion and help you start building a strong classroom community from Day One. UPDATE: This free stations download now has two versions. The original was designed for English/Language Arts classes, while the new edition features generic wording to make it work with all subject areas. Math, Science, Social Studies, World Language, and Electives teachers rejoice! You, too, can enjoy some non-cheesy fun with this first day of school stations activity. (Sorry, software and licensing limitations mean I can't provide an editable version.) This free 38-page PDF includes: • 21 slides to lead a class step-by-step through the station rotation activity • 16 pages to print and post around your room to form 8 stations • a single-page worksheet to use at the end of class or assign as homework anytime during the first week of school Materials you need include: • Sticky notes (8 per student) • Index cards (8 per class) • Printer paper (white or, even better, colored) Hope these materials help you start the year strong! Looking for a way to get teens working from the very beginning of class? Check out this Full Year Collection of Bell-Ringers (an all-time TpT best-seller) that cover grammar, lit. terms, and vocabulary in bite-size chunks. Want a similar stations activity to use mid-year once you know your students? Check out this free set of Welcome Back stations materials to use after winter break or as you launch a new semester/trimester. Special thanks to my talented teacher friend Madeline Alyce for the inspiration! Click here to check out her free annotation tools. Thanks for stopping by! Cover image credit: Pexels, Public domain

Pokemon Go was all the rage in 2016. Fortnite in 2017. You get where we are going with this! Getting back into the swing of things of a new school year can be tricky, but we can help! An easy way to connect with your students is to make your back-to-school lessons relevant and relatable. How can you do this? We have compiled a list of several ways that you can easily incorporate teen trends into your back-to-school lessons for the first few weeks (or anytime!) of the year. Most teens love music and connect with it on a personal level. You can bridge that connection by incorporating music into your daily routines. For example, play an upbeat song between bell work and discussion time to motivate your students. If you struggle to know what's popular with your students, just ask them! The beginning of the year is the perfect time to find out more about them and their music preferences. You can give them a writing prompt asking what their favorite songs are or be even more specific; ask them: Which song makes you want to get up and dance? Which song could you listen to over and over again and never grow tired of? Once you have compiled a list of their favorite songs, search the lyrics of a few. You can often find the best examples of figurative language in song lyrics. If the lyrics are appropriate, print them off and play the song in class and ask students to find examples of figurative devices. This activity can be done anytime, but it's for great back-to-school to review figurative language and to gauge your students' learning levels. Another way to incorporate music directly into learning is to compare popular music artists with writers or subjects you are reading. During poetry and Shakespeare units, I love challenging students to see if they can guess whether the line or phrase is from a song or a poem. I created an entire series with various poets and musicians that you can download here. I'll start out with a presentation and a student handout so the as whole can engage in the activity. It's so much fun to see their reactions when they swear there's no way the line came from an old poet, but it actually did! The next day, I'll display the bulletin board (below) so students can continue to interact with the lines of poetry and songs. One way to grab the attention of your students is to explore books that may have been released since school has been out and/or sharing some titles of books that will be released in the coming months! Talk about anticipation! :) Here are a few YA books that came out recently: Girl Gone Viral by Arvin Ahmadi The Haunted by Danielle Vega We Walked the Sky by Lisa Fiedler Here are a few YA books that will be coming out soon: Frankly in Love by David Yoon The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh You can also see what your students are interested in by displaying these Genre Reading Cards around a few tables in your classroom (or in the library). Simply, set out the different genre cards, select a few books that fit within each genre, set a timer for 2-3 minutes and let your students explore the various titles. Follow-up with a brief discussion on their favorite books they may have already read (or discovered) through the stations. This is a quick and easy way to see what genres they are interested in or may be interested in exploring this school year. Whether it's the World Cup or the Super Bowl, chances are many of your students are fans of sports or are familiar with at least one sport. Using this FREE survey at the beginning of the year, ask your students which sports or teams are their favorite. (Click HERE to get an editable digital copy of the survey ready for distance learning!) Once you have an idea about their favorites, you can incorporate them into your lessons. For example, if you are writing a sample sentence for a grammar lesson, name-drop a player from one of their favorite teams. My students are usually divided between being either a Chicago Cubs or a St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan, so a sample sentence may be: "Anthony Rizzo and Dexter Fowler sat down together to have pizza after the Cubs defeated the Cardinals last night." Every two years, you can integrate the Olympics into your lessons. Re-word the titles of your activities or assignments by using Olympic-themed names. Instead of calling it a class discussion or a "think-pair-share," call it the "Opening Ceremony" or "Passing the torch of knowledge." A quiz can be called a bobsled competition or a vault competition for gymnastics. Award the top three scores with gold, silver and bronze medals. If you teach multiple sections of the same class, have your classes compete for the overall winner. Awards points for the class with the fewest tardies, the highest scores on quizzes or assignments, and/or the liveliest discussions. Better yet, have your students create the areas for competitions and what they'd like to call them. They can even pick which country they would like to represent (or create their own country). Some students may not like traditional sports, but love video and online gaming. The popularity of videos such as Minecraft and Fortnite paired with the rise of schools adopting eSports as official extracurricular activities indicate that our students still love gaming. Instead of fighting it, try to embrace it by giving students opportunities to utilize both the skills they learn through games with academic skills. For example, I asked my students to recreate a scene from Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. One group built Rome in Minecraft and reenacted one of the scenes live as the class watched. My head was swimming a bit, but it was pretty amazing to see what they created together and how they adapted it to the text. They learned more about the play from that one assignment and had so much fun doing it. This particular assignment may not work with other games, but if you allow your students the possibility of incorporating their favorite game into a project, you may be amazed at the ideas that they come up with. I don't know about you, but one of my favorite things as a student was when we were able to follow-up a book with a movie. As a visual person, I always appreciated when I saw a book come to life after reading it (even though most people prefer the book over the movie). Watching the movie after reading the book can lead to a lot of fun class discussions. Here are a few fun prompts that you can use to follow-up after your are done reading and watching! What did you like better, the book or the movie? Why was the book better than the movie? Why was the movie better than the book? What did the book have that the movie didn't? What did the movie have that the book didn't? A great way to grab the attention of your students would be to plan a unit around an upcoming movie release based on a book. This might be an older book or perhaps, a newer one. Regardless, your students will think it's pretty cool that they are going to be able to watch a movie. I realize it's not possible for all classes to be able to watch a movie in a theatre, but it's a fun and quick field trip if you can make it work! Movie theatres usually give a discount on larger groups and I usually try to work in a price that includes popcorn and a drink for everyone, too. If you think money may be an issue for some students, it does not hurt to ask your administraton for some assistance. They will, almost always, find a way to make sure everyone in your class is able to participate. You can also plan a unit around a particular theme of a movie coming out (or already in stores), if you're looking to take a break from reading for a few weeks. Once students gain a better understanding or appreciation about a particular theme, you can show them a movie where they can explore that theme even more. This way, if taking your students to a movie theatre isn't an option, then show a movie in your classroom instead! Note: You can ask your students which movies they may be interested in watching at the start of the year, then surprise them with the themed unit based around that film! One of the easiest ways to incorporate both social media and pop culture all at once is incorporating current events into your classroom. You can do this on a local, national or international level. You can simply ask your students to start talking about what's happening in your town, in the world, or even more specifically, with their favorite movie actors, singers, bands, etc. What's the gossip with their favorite celebrities? Once your ideas have been shared and topics have been listed, you can use this list as a means for an impromptu writing activity, as an essay topic, etc. The possibilities are endless. If you're interested in checking out more ways on how you can incorporate pop culture into the classroom, click HERE. You might also be interested in: Soundtrack of my Life/Playlist of my Summer

Of of the most engaging and interactive ways to start the new school year is by facilitating a back-to-school station activity in your classroom. Using back-to-school stations as a classroom activity during the first week of school a great way to get your students up and interacting with each other. Furthermore, back-to-school stations are also great for getting to know your students and handing out important class information.

Incorporating Getting to Know Each Other activities in your primary classroom is critical for a successful school year. See these ideas to build community.

If you're a high school science teacher (or a soon-to-be high school science teacher), I'd like to share with you how I preferred to start the year with my freshmen and sophomores- and why! Though I

These first week of school activities and first-day icebreakers will build classroom community and set expectations for the year to come.

This adorable Skittles Back to School Activity Game is the perfect first day of school icebreaker activity or get to know you game for kids, students, teachers or staff. Grab some skittles and distribute the candies and cards to participants. Each person can then answer the question prompt that matches their candies. Can be used in the school classroom or at Sunday School as a meet the teacher or all about me activity or team building exercise. This group party game is such a fun way to learn more about others and makes a great snack too! INCLUDES 8.5x11in Digital Download (6 tags - Each Tag measures 3 in. x 3 in. wide) No Candy included. PLEASE NOTE This document is not compatible with cutting machines. This documents in this listing are NOT able to be edited. Please reading listing description carefully to ensure purchasing desired item. This is a digital download only. Print with a laser printer for a higher quality result. You may print this file as many times as you would like for personal use. Colors on computer monitor, printer and paper used may vary slightly. ALL SALES ARE FINAL No refunds, exchanges or cancellations will be given. Once payment is received and confirmed, your file will be available to download. This custom designed download is only available for personal use and cannot be resold, copied, resent or distributed. All ITEMS ARE PERSONAL USE ONLY! All of our items are copyrighted and are not to be resold, copied, claimed as your own or given away via distribution. No file sharing. Not for commercial use.

We had our first day of school with students Wednesday and I forgot how utterly exhausting and mind blowing that first day is! We did lots ...

I love finding first day of school math activities! These back to school activities are perfect for middle school or high school math.

20 fun and engaging first day of school icebreakers for kids to help your students transition back to school and get to know one another!

Here are eight creative back to school activities, games, and icebreakers that your middle and high school students will love the first week of school. Creative Back to School Activities for the Secondary Classroomhttps://static.wixstatic.com/media/ee4396_ae14703b68ac414ebb9a84e847fd6310~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1080,h_1080,al_c,q_90/ee4396_ae14703b68ac414ebb9a84e847fd6310~mv2.png

Much like students who spend more hours on the hook of an essay than they do the bulk of an essay, I often found myself with a case of English teacher writing block when it came to planning my first day of school activities. Though I have ten years (x two semesters each) of ... Read More about First Day of School Activities for High School and Middle School English

Cognates in Spanish provide an easy win for your novices! Check out a unit of Spanish 1 lesson plans to explore cognates in Spanish!

First Day of School Activities to Get to Know Your Students Back-to-school time can be fun and exciting for middle and high school students. Getting off on the right foot at the start of a new scho…

All prices are in Canadian dollars. Total Pages: N/AAnswer Key: IncludedTeaching Duration: 1 WeeksFile Size: 61.3MBFile Type: PDF (Zip) Ignite student excitement and connection in your classroom with this incredible First Day Activities Middle School Mega Bundle! Designed specifically for middle school students, this comprehensive set of 17+ resources will save you time while helping you achieve a smooth and engaging start to the school year. Whether you teach in-person or virtually, these resources are your perfect companions for cooperative learning and fostering social-emotional growth. Use these highly engaging Back to School Middle School Activities with your students. Click Here To View The Preview Mega Bundle Includes: 15 Different Back to School Middle School Activities Back To School Escape Room Pet-Themed Digital Escape Room Creative Writing Choice Board Assignment School Uniforms Non-Fiction Article Classroom Reward Coupons 365 Attendance Questions Middle School ELA Emergency Sub Plans Grades 6, 7 and 8 Long Range Plans Unleash the Power of the Mega Bundle: Explore 15 Exciting Back to School Activities: From icebreakers to team-building challenges, these carefully curated activities will enable your students to forge meaningful connections right from day one. Embark on a Thrilling Digital Escape Room: Take your students on an unforgettable adventure while enhancing their critical thinking skills. This interactive escape room will keep them on the edge of their seats as they solve puzzles and unlock mysteries. Nurture Creative Writing with a Choice Board Assignment: Encourage your students to unleash their imagination through a variety of captivating writing prompts. This choice board sparks their creativity, helping them express their unique perspectives and strengthen their language skills. Dive into Compelling Non-Fiction with School Uniforms: Broaden your students' horizons with a thought-provoking non-fiction article about school uniforms. This resource stimulates meaningful discussions, encourages critical analysis, and fosters a deeper understanding of diverse perspectives. Reward Positive Behavior with Classroom Coupons: Motivate and inspire your students with a set of delightful classroom reward coupons. These little incentives go a long way in promoting positive behaviour, creating a harmonious learning environment, and boosting student engagement. 365 Engaging Attendance Questions: Use these questions to build classroom community and strengthen your classroom management skills. You will also get access to Middle School ELA Emergency Sub Plans and Grades 6, 7 and 8 Long Range Plans to help you organize your year. Get a sneak peek of each resource by exploring their previews. What Fellow Teachers Have to Say: "This was a great resource! Lots of highly engaging, interactive, community-building activities. Very helpful in orientating everyone to a new school year!" "Thank you for making back to school planning a breeze! Students have been engaged and enjoying each lesson so far. I will use for years to come!" "Great resources for an engaging start for the year. It's nice to have more ways to engage and get to know the students in those first few weeks of learning and community building." Don't miss out on this amazing opportunity to create a vibrant and connected classroom community. Grab this First Day Activities Middle School Mega Bundle today!

Looking to grab students' attention during the first week of school with fun and easy science experiments? These super fun back to school science experiments are perfect for your first week of school science activities.

Need a fun first day activity to break the ice and get students connecting? Try hexagonal identity one-pagers.

Here are the 5 most powerful activities for first day of high school that will liven up your class and eliminate the boredom.

I dreaded the first day of school–until I created my own high school scavenger hunt! Use this process and a FREE template to create yours!

These first week of school activities and first-day icebreakers will build classroom community and set expectations for the year to come.