7 First Day of School Activities Students Love The first day of school will be here before you know it. Most teachers face the big day with enthusiasm, but they dread the inevitable challenge: what to do on the first day of school. Every teacher’s approach is different. Goal: Getting to Know Your Students How well will your incoming students know you? If you’re teaching kindergarteners (or high school freshmen, who often seem like kindergarteners), you may need to spend the first day – or the first several days –getting everyone comfortable. Teaching strategies for improving friendship skills at the elementary school... The School of Education at Gardner-Webb University has received national... We examine the classroom management characteristics of effective teachers. A few useful classroom management ways to get information from your students on... 7 great technology in the classroom apps to use this year. Plan a Scavenger Hunt Assess Learning Styles or Multiple Intelligences Do a Self-Portrait Create a Time Capsule Get Them Guessing
136 FREE Back To School Worksheets & First Day Of School Activities Ready to start your class off right? The first day of class is an important time for teachers and students alike - it’s the time to learn all your students’ names, set the tone for your classroom, and make sure everyone’s feeling relaxed and ready to learn. You probably don’t want to charge in with too much new material on the very first day - after all, it’s important for your students to feel relaxed around you, and around each other, so they’ll be comfortable enough to learn and produce the new ESL concepts you’ll be sharing with them. The question is, how can you help them feel relaxed? With BusyTeacher.org’s 264 resources for the first day of school, of course! Whether you’re kicking off a class with a brand-new set of level-one ESL students, or launching a final class with a group of level-five students approaching full fluency, you’ll find resources here to break the ice and get your class laughing and talking like they’ve known each other for years.
First Week Plans For the past three years, the beginning of every year has meant a new school, new students, new classes. Last year I had FOUR preps, one of which I didn't know about until a week before school started. So my first days of school have always been pretty mundane. Here's the syllabus, here's your book, here's the rules... blah blah blah. But this year I am at the same school, in the same room and feel like I can breathe under my three preps (two of which are new, but oh well!). After reading the #mssunfun and hearing(reading) so many posts about not starting the year like a robot I'm inspired to not even mention my syllabus until our third (and first full 90 minute block) class. Google doc survey. And then in no particular order, here are some of the ideas I stole off the Middle School list,
First Day of School Activities I'd love to hear what activities you do with your students on the first day of school. Link up below with one of your favorite activities or share your plans for the whole day. This year I created a small book for the first day/week of second grade. My students will write about themselves, the school, the classroom, and me (the teacher). If you would like to check out the two books click here for the Welcome to Second Grade book and here for the So Long Second Grade book. Megan (Linkup closed)
Detective Game by Peter Pappas I did not waste the opening week of school introducing the course – my students solved mysteries. I took simplified mysteries and split them into 25-30 clues, each on a single strip of paper. Read my blog post on how I used this lesson. I used a random count off to get the kids away from their buddies and into groups of 5-6 students. Each group got a complete set of clues for the mystery. This activity demonstrates to students the need for considering the contributions of every group member and gives them practice in organizing cooperatively to accomplish a task. You will need a set of clues for the case for each group. Link to Murder Mystery Clues Link to Bank Robbery Clues Note - These clues were adapted from: Learning Discussion Skills Through Games Gene and Barbara Dodds Stanford Citation Press / Scholastic Books 1969 Students are seated in a circle with the teacher standing outside the group. "Today we are going to play another game that will help improve your discussion skills.
Fostering Relationships in the Classroom Students and teacher need to develop positive and trusting relationships in an effective classroom. It is also critical that all students, especially English-language learners, develop trusting and enriching relationships with each other. There are many activities which can be used for both introductory purposes and throughout the year to build and maintain positive relationships in the classroom. Some activities which work well to introduce students to each other and to the teacher can be used again at later points in the year as students' interests change and as they gain new life experiences. While this is certainly not an exhaustive list, it contains several suggestions we have found successful and which could easily be adapted for use with different levels of students. 1) Sharing Weekly Reflections 2) Introducing Me/3 Objects This activity is sometimes called a "Me Bag" or an "All About Me Bag." 3) "I Am" Project There are many variations of the "I Am" activity. 6) Four Squares