Whaddya say we chat about favorite first-day-of-school activities? As a teacher, I loved to know what types of activities my colleagues were planning. Heck, I’m not teaching and I’m still curious! Maybe it’s because I was never quite sure how much to plan or exactly what to plan. For the first few days of school, I tended to switch between getting-acquainted activities and skill-related investigations. What about you? What’s your planning strategy? Do you have a favorite first-day activity you’d like to share?
Curious as ever!
Diane
In our school we keep our “old classes” from the previous year for Tues./Wed./Thurs. of the first week to make sure that their “new” classes will not need to be changed due to an increase or decrease of enrollment over the summer monthe.
We choose a school wide theme(last year it was social responsibility) and each teacher(primary & intermediate theme activities are different) is responsible for one activity for the week. The students move in grade groups to each activity so that by the end of the week new students have had a chance to work with their new classmates and all students have had a chance to work with the teachers at their level.
Last year each teacher took a letter of a “social respsonsibility” word like “encourage”….as the students came to each teacher they worked in groups to decorate and fill in a letter with visuals/words that demonstrated the word….at the end of the week, our halls/gym were filled with huge responsiblity words that were left up throughout the year.
We also plan “buddy” activities so that the primary students feel comfortable with the older students…one year we gave each student a small “body shape”…the older students helped the younger ones decorate and label the shape as well as doing their own…we then put them up on the hallway walls in a huge line holding hands throughout the school.
On Friday of the first week, the students go to their “new” classes….no “first day” jitters as they have worked with their friends all week.
i like to refer to my “first six weeks of school” book. we play games that involve learning names and learning about each other. we read picture books about starting a new year. we learn procedures and how to use materials.
as i teach at a small nursery school,the so called “jitters”” are lots of tears from some students.at the young age of 3 usually the tears are a chain reaction of seeing someone else crying or a parent that hangs around for a little too long.the first week or so is definitely the most difficult part of the year for me. as i will have a big class this year, i will try to welcome the “old” students of the school on sept 1 st and gradually welcome the new ones in different time slots the following few days.I hope by the second week or so those tears will be replaced by laughter…if not i may be crying too!
I like to do The Kissing Hand and Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten. We read and do an activity witheach book. I like to have the students draw a picture and dictate what they did to get ready for kindergarten. This becomes our first class made book (I try to make sure every student takes home a class made book at the end of the year).
We also decide on our class rules toghether (lots of coaxing from me)and we go over procedures. We do a couple of get to know you activities.
this year I am going wild about preschool to help my little ones learn that preschool is fun. We will be doing a act out story about monkeys. A flannel board story about a zebra. I will be using a puppet Mrs. Do Bee to teach about the rules and routines of the classroom.
Each year I try to change it up.
I like to read ‘Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?’ Then, I put each students’ name in a cookie jar, pull out the name, and we do a chant to learn each others’ names. It’s fun!
I like to make flip books with the kids that are titled, “All About Me.” I learn a lot about my students that way. We also do all sorts of fun scavenger hunts for classroom things as well as textbook scavenger hunts. My favorite first day activity, though, is a glyph. Students love making glyphs and the parents love trying to figure out who’s who by following the clues given!