When I start the new school year, I pick a book of the day for the first two weeks. I create a variety of activities to go with each book. I use a lot of books that focus on social and emotional learning, including kindness, friendship, and respect. But, I also add in some fun ... Read More about 8 Books for Back to School
If you are using the 2020 or 2023 Wonders Program, go to the updated version of Smart Start. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Smart-Start-Wonders-2020-and-2023-1st-Grade-Centers-and-Printables-8236491 Included are printables to be used the first three weeks of 1st grade with the Wonders Reading Series. The printables include for each week: Phonics: Cut and paste sound sheets Write the letter for the sound Find the words by using a magnifying glass Color the pictures by reading the words Finding the letters covered for the week in a puzzle Counting and then find words Reading sentences and drawing a picture to illustrate High-Frequency Words: Posters for the words covered each week Words to be made by using play-doe Color the picture by reading the High-Frequency Words Find the High-Frequency Word on a Hundred's Chart Stamp the High-Frequency Words High-Frequency Cards to be used for your Word Wall Writing: Write letters covered for each week on lined paper. Click below and it will take you to the Smart Start PowerPoints. Smart Start PowerPoints
Then, we used a little total physical response to give my firsties a better visual on how the size of the places we live are related. They *loved* this
Which Back to School Activities Elementary can I use for Building Community in my Classroom? Which All About Me Activities are most engaging for my students?
I have had the BEST first week! It was jam packed and the days went by in the blink of an eye. I've been use to have 18 kids for the whole day in first grade. Since I'm just teaching reading, I have three different classes and 72 kids! That is definitely going to take
FREE What Do Scientists Do? activities and first week of science lesson plans ideal for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms and distance learning.
Back to School Activities that are great for an online classroom or inside a classroom.
Planning for your first back to school activities can feel overwhelming! Here are my first week of school lesson plans and resources.
No Prep Second Grade Math Curriculum Full Year A full years worth of second grade math work and practice. 190+ pages! This is a 190+ page work book that takes you from place value to money to measu…
These all about me, back to school art activities for kids are engaging icebreakers. Encourage creativity and build community during the first week back
It is the first week of kindergarten! What do I teach? I get this question all the time! I am so excited to put together this page together for you. I’m sharing our favorite first week of kindergarten read aloud stories and the free coordinating printables I made to go with them. Plus I will s
Musings of a Third Grade Teacher
The first day of first grade is always a really fun, but hectic day for my littles. They are so excited to come to school, but they are always a little nervous since they don’t know what to expect when they walk through my classroom door. I always have an activity such as a first day coloring page or a play-doh model on their desks to work on right when they come in so my students are busy creating while I welcome students and take attendance.
Now that my new air conditioner is installed and up and running (YES- I lost air at the start of the summer! EEK!), and I've gotten my fair ...
First week of school activities for kindergarten & 1st grade students including First Day Jitters, school bus safety, & friendship activities.
I wanted to stop by today and share some a few of my “go-to” activities during the first week of school to build our classroom community and set expectations for […]
The First Day Of 1st Grade What does the first day of 1st grade look like? Happy day, friends! I hope this post finds you well and loving (or about to love) your new group of friends. This year, i…
Students circulate through the classroom and meet new friends! Here's a great team building activity I like to have on hand for the first week of school! Use "Find a Friend" for a quick structure to allow for student interaction, to model classroom expectations for movement in the room, and to review and practice classroom manners. With the recording sheet in hand, students circulate through the room to pair up with a new friend. Students greet each other and take turns to ask a question related to the grid. For example, student A will say say to student B, "Do you like to read?" Student B will reply, "Yes, I do like to read." Student B will then sign his name in the corresponding box on Student A's paper. (If the student replies with a "no", I encourage my first graders to try again and to ask about something else on the paper. After all, we have different likes and dislikes.) Before rotating, students thank each other. Students mix and pair again with a new partner to complete the grid as time allows. I do remind the children that they may only sign someone's paper one time. These activities promote positive interaction, movement, and community. It also allows for me to model (...again) how to stand up and carry the paper/pencil, how to find a partner quietly (by making eye contact), how to say "please" and "thank you", and how to speak using an inside voice. Click here to download this "Find a Friend" activity. link Here's One for Color Words. Click on the image below to download this "Find a Friend" activity. (Some children may need to have support with recognizing and reading the words.) Like Those? Here's one for number words, too! Click on the image below to download this "Find a Friend" activity. Happy Holiday Weekend!
Not sure what to teach the first week of 3rd grade? Here's what we did!
Cursive tracing worksheet, Alphabet Cursive Printable, Days of the week cursive handwriting worksheet Months of the Year cursive handwriting Days of the week Months of the year Uppercase letters Lowercase letters Pages: 13 pages REMINDER: This is a DIGITAL download. Not a physical item. Directions: After purchasing the item, you will receive an email from Etsy containing the link to download the files. Kindly read this article for more information: https://www.etsy.com/help/article/3949 Due to monitor differences and your printer settings, the actual colors of your printed product may vary slightly. TIP: Print and laminate the worksheets for multiple uses! Click for more: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CraftedWithBlissShop Follow us! FB - Pinterest - IG @craftedwithbliss Visit us for more! https://craftedwithbliss.com/ Paper Format: A4 size - 21cm x 29.7cm Terms of use: After purchase, the buyer acquires the license of the product for personal and non-commercial use only. The buyer is strictly not allowed to sell, rent, send, and distribute the file to others. In addition, the buyer is strictly not allowed to share, copy, or lend the file to others. Unauthorized usage or reproduction of our products is a clear violation of the copyright laws. Lastly, we have a no return and refund policy. With this, we will not allow any return of our products or refund of your payment upon purchase. Thank you! Let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Just message us here! :)
My, oh my! The first week of first grade is OVER! I swear, 5 years later and I still forget just how little and “new” to school 1st graders are. The growth is just so amazing and HUGE in first grade that all I can do is picture last year’s class at the end […]
Planning for the first week of school can be overwhelming! Here are my first week of school lesson plans and resources.
First week of school activities for kindergarten & 1st grade students including First Day Jitters, school bus safety, & friendship activities.
Tidbits and treats for teachers
Back to School Activities that are great for an online classroom or inside a classroom.
Create back to school memories with 25 super-cute back to school coloring pages for kids. Grab the free printable PDF download for each!
I l.o.v.e.d the 2nd grade version of this packet that I created, that I went ahead and adapted it for grades k-5 to meet the needs of buyers! Hands down, this has been my favorite packet to do the first few weeks of school. You can grab all grade levels 20% off for Thursday...
Celebrate a successful first day of Kindergarten or first grade with these FREE first day of school crowns!
PRIMARY WRITING - UNIT 3 I am so excited to teach this narrative writing unit! This writing curriculum is geared for kindergarten, first grade and can even be used in second grade classrooms. In Unit 3 , we are learning how to write a personal narrative . We practice writing about what we l
Fun activities to help you get to know your students and build community at the beginning of a new school year.
Are you looking for a way to work on first grade math skills? This free packet is for you! It could be used for learning in the classroom or at home! This packet works on
Two weeks from the day that I am writing this blog post, I will be heading back to school. I’ve spent a decent amount of time this summer getting my room set up, and I felt good about walking away for a while after a few days of setting up. But now, my brain has turned to: What in the world are the
Helping K-2 Teachers Like You Save Time, Grow Instructional Skills, and Teach With Confidence!
Name posters are an easy art project for the first day of school and also double as classroom decor!
STEM Class Activities for the First Week of School If you want to get to know a little more about your students, and get them started to think like scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, I have some great ideas for you! Get to Know You Activities for STEM Class Get to know your new STEM students with an All About Me activity! The Math About Me and Science About Me activities are perfect for this. With multiple options, depending on what grade you teach, there is something for everyone. These activities have your students think about things in a slightly different way. For example, in the Math About Me activity, their age can be displayed as a mathematical expression (such as 48÷4), while in the Science About Me activity, the banner asks students to write down how many solar orbits they have taken (their age). Collaborative Activities and Team Builders ABC STEM Game: Try to think of a "STEM word" for each letter of the alphabet as a class. You might start with "astronaut, architect, or ASK (the first step of the Engineering Design Process). Find Your Pair or Find Your Team: Use sets of colored straws, pencils, colored dice, or mini erasers. Pass out one to each student and then have them find the other student(s) with the same color/type of object. You can also use pairing cards such as these. This is great for when you want to build STEM teams, too! Find all my favorite STEM Team Builders and Icebreakers in this post: STEM Lab Rules and Expectations It's important to go over safety rules for all equipment, your specific rules to your classroom, and then to set expectations for students. You may have some you start with and you may want to ask your students to help come up with some basic ones too. Some ideas for STEM rules and expectations: Only operate equipment you've been trained to use. safety Report accidents right away. safety Clean up your workspace when you are finished. responsibility Listen to your teammates. It's okay to disagree but not be disrespectful. cooperation Sometimes you will fail and that's okay! Do your best and try again. growth mindset If you don't know, ask. curiosity What other rules and expectations do you use in your class? You may want to have a specific set of rules for things like robots, too! I created a free set of robot rules you can download below: Need a safety poster for your glue guns? This editable resource is available to download here: STEM Building Challenges Try some basic building challenges with your students so they can get a feel for hands-on activities right away! You can download Tower Task Card Challenges from my free resource library: You can also find STEM challenge cards to use with KEVA planks in this blog post: STEM Books to Read What better way to start off your school year than with books that inspire creativity and explore failure and growth mindset! Find all my recommendations over at this blog post: I hope you have a great start to your STEMtastic year! Pin these ideas to save them for later:
Fun and engaging ideas to get to know your students at the beginning of the school year. Build a strong classroom community with these free resources.
Teaching behavior expectations in kindergarten is important, especially in the first few weeks of school. This often sets the stage for your class for the entire year. For students to fully understand what is expected of them, it is important that teachers address and teach these expectation. I usually spend a lot of time during the first weeks of school teaching student expectations and classroom behaviors. We complete sorts of good choices and bad choices in the classroom and discuss what makes them good and bad choices. We complete these sorts whole group and students also complete individual behavior reflection sheets. These work great during the first few weeks of school or when students may need a review. These include different levels of difficulty beginning with students simply deciding if an actions is a good or bad choice, to a student sort of good and bad choices (this is a freebie at the end of the blog post) to finally illustrating or writing good or bad choices. Also we color an emergent reader reviewing some of the classroom expectations. These can also just be used as little coloring pages when a classroom expectation is introduced. In your classroom, you may want to challenge your students to focus on a certain expectation for a week. Included are posters that would work great for this: These provide a visual and focus for students when expectations are being taught. You can make it a game and provide an incentive if students can meet this expectation a certain amount of times in a week. Once these expectations are taught it is important to keep students accountable to their actions. I have been using a visual think sheet in my classroom that is perfect for this. It is very appropriate for your early learners in pre-k or kindergarten or special ed because it includes pictures for students to show what they did. Students simply color in the choice they made and a better choice they can make. These are great reflections for students, communication for parents and documentation if necessary. You may also want to post these cool down methods where students can reflect on strategies to cool down, instead of getting upset. You can find this entire Behavior Think Sheets and Activities in my TPT store and the Free Good and Bad Choices Student Sort here:
First Grade Science Full Year Curriculum 36 weeks of Science for first graders. Actually probably would work for first and second. I would suggest finding books or videos online to go along with th…
Not sure what to teach the first week of 3rd grade? Here's what we did!
One of the best things to do on the first day of school is plan cooperative learning activities where students can get to know one another.
