Back to School Bask Week 3: First Week of School Ideas and Plans

Whew!  Last week of school was my first week with kids...by Friday I was crazy tired.  I mean there is nothing, I repeat NOTHING quite like beginning of the year TEACHER TIRED.  I went to bed at 8:45 Friday night.  However, it was a great 1st week, and I have a challenging, but fun group of kids!

Here are a few of the activities and highlights from our first week of school!

So, I know the book First Day Jitters is a beginning of the year favorite, but I have found that many of my students have heard it several times by the time they get to me!  Some of my favorites are above!  After reading, Do Unto Otters, we work as a class to make a list of what RESPECT "looks like", "sounds like", "feels like" and "is not" in our classroom (sorry I didn't get a picture of that)!  We always read Sideways Stories from Wayside School as our first chapter book read aloud.  It is silly and engaging, and I have found it's just a great first read for the year!  Finally, I LOVE reading This School Year will be The BEST!.  My students then create their own imaginative pictures and sentences of what their BEST YEAR would include...these are often a HOOT!

A few years ago, I saw this idea of Class Consensograms from the Ginger Snaps blog.  It is such a cute way to get the kids up and moving, voting on their preferences with a sticker, and learning about each other.  I save these charts all year and then pull them out to create different types of graphs in math throughout the year.  You can use any survey questions you wish, but it is a great way to start learning about your students' interests, learning styles, and more!

We start Reading Workshop on Day 2 of school!  You can NEVER start building independent reading stamina too fast!  I use the plans from my Reading Workshop Launch Unit!  I ask students to bring their favorite book to school on the 3rd day of school.  Then we discuss our books and why they are our favorite and make a list of things we "notice" and have in common about our favorite books!  

Our first writing project is based around The Important Book.  We read the book and then we make a list of the Top 10 Reasons We're Important.  Day 2, I have the students fill in the scaffolded Important Poem Rough Draft Template about themselves.  I then type of up their final poems to display in the hallway for Open House!  This is always a favorite keepsake of my students' parents!

Finally, one of my favorite beginning of the year activities is to have my students create a transformation of a second grade 2.  Look how creative this "monster Pharaoh" is!

This is just a sampling of some of the parts of our first week together!  It was busy, challenging, but oh--so--fun!

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I hope that some of you will link up your amazing ideas for the First Week of School!

Hootfully yours,

Lindsay

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