Five Welcome Back to School Activities
Back to school is upon us and that means that you are probably thinking about some welcome back-to-school activities that you can incorporate into your class during the first week of school. Here are some great ideas to get you started!
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About Me Activities:
One way to get to know your students is to have them do some activities that tell you a little bit about themselves. You can ask them to fill out an “All About Me” banner or even print out a picture of a water bottle and have them draw “Stickers” onto it that would describe them.
You can have them create a poster that you could put into your classroom as decoration as a bulletin board. This poster could include information like their names, favorite activities, what they want to be when they grow up, etc. I had a teacher in college that always started his classes by asking us what our favorite sandwich is. This would be a funny thing that you could include in an about me activity or some other witty question that you are curious about.
If you are looking for some Journals Pages that would be great for getting to know your students then I have a set for back-to-school that is available to my subscribers. Click on the image below to grab it.
Growth Mindset Activities:
Another great activity that you could do in your welcome back to school activities is growth midset activities. Growth mindset activities help your students understand that their effort and attitude have a direct impact on their success in school. One way to do this is to create a “Growth Mindset Tree.” Each student gets a paper tree and draws leaves on it. Throughout the week, whenever the student notices they are frustrated with their efforts and are having a hard time, they can go to their tree and instead think of phrases that will help them grow a growth mindset. Like “I’m trying my best” or “I can do this” That way throughout the school year they can go back to that tree and it will help foster a growth mindset in them for this year and years to come. Eventually, it will just become second nature to them to think with a growth mindset.
Establishing Relationships:
One of the most important welcome back to school activities that you can do is to establish relationships with your students. You want them to feel comfortable coming to you with any questions or concerns that they might have throughout the year. A great way to establish relationships is to figure out your student’s favorite things and incorporate these ideas into your lessons. You can do that through back-to-school writing activities. I have made a great one for getting to know your students and the fun part is that it is also cactus themed which I just think is so cute. To grab it click here.
Another great way to establish a relationship is to get down on your students’ level and talk to them by looking them in the eyes. This will help show your students that you care about them and are interested in what they have to say. It also shows them that you respect them enough to give them your time and attention this will go far with students and will establish you as a healthy relationship in their lives.
Assigning Classroom Jobs:
A great way to start the year off is by assigning classroom jobs to your students. This will help them feel like they are a part of the classroom and have some responsibility within the classroom. It also helps them to take pride in their classroom and feel like they are contributing to the overall success of the class.
There are a lot of different ways that you can assign jobs, but one way is to have your students write down their top three job choices, and then you can pick from there. In order to do this, you need to list out the possible jobs that they can have in the classroom. If there are no jobs that students are interested in you can still assign them to a student but also let students know that jobs will change every week. That way if they don’t get the job that they want now they can get it later.
Another great way to do this is by assigning jobs based on interest. If you have a student who is really into art, you can assign them the job of classroom artist. This way they are responsible for decorating the classroom and making it look nice. There are so many possibilities when it comes to assigning jobs, and it really just depends on your classroom and what will work best for you.
Another way is to just assign jobs based on names in the class and let kids know they will have a chance to do all the jobs as the jobs will change on a weekly basis.
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Establishing Classroom Routines:
One of the most important things that you can do in your welcome back to school activities is to establish classroom routines. This will help your students know what to expect each day and help them feel more comfortable in the classroom.
Some things that you can do to establish routines are:
– Have a set time each day for students to put away their things and line up. This routine can be established at the end of the school day and reinforced every day during the first week of school. You can also have a similar routine for the start of school every day. This would allow students to know how they need to start the day in your classroom to make sure they have the best day they can.
Set a routine for how you will start and end each class. This could be done by having a specific sound or music that will play when students need to transition to a different activity. You can also establish what that transition entails. For instance, when moving from math centers to reading circles. You need to put up your center toys and manipulatives in their bins and put them on the shelves that are labeled for that toy and come and sit on the rug with your hands on your lap. On the first day and week, you will need to teach the kids what certain sounds mean and what they need to do when they hear that.
– Have a routine for when students need to go to the restroom. You can have a restroom pass where only one student can be in the bathroom at one time. You could also make it so one boy and one girl could go to the restroom at a time and how they need to ask. You can also lessen the number of kids asking to go to the restroom during class time by having specific times during the day that the whole class goes to the restroom together like before or after recess and before and after lunch.
If you establish these routines then kids have something to fall back on and that is going to help so much for your classroom management.
Classroom Management:
One skill that you will want to focus on during your welcome back to school activities is going to be classroom management. This is going to be something that you build that helps students learn better and feel safe and calm in your class. This is so important because it sets the tone for the whole year. You want your students to know what is expected of them and how they need to behave in order to have a successful school year.
One of the first classroom management techniques that you can employ is the establish classroom rules with your students. This is a great way to get them involved in the classroom and let them know what you expect of them. You can do this by brainstorming with your students what rules they think should be in the classroom. Once you have a list, you can then narrow it down to the top five or so rules that will be most important for your classroom. You can also add some of your own that you know will need to be in place for your classroom to run smoothly.
After the rules have been decided on well you can have kids sign contracts to show that they will adhere to the rules. This is a great way to get buy-in from your students and let them know that you are serious about the rules.
You will also want to establish procedures for different activities in the classroom. This could be things like how to line up, how to turn in work, how to ask to go to the restroom, etc. I talked a bit about how to establish these routines but they will do wonders for your classroom management when you stick to them.
Lastly, a classroom management technique that you will want to establish is what are the phrases that you will use to get the class’s attention. This is important because you want to make sure that you are using phrases that are not going to startle your students but will get their attention so you can redirect them if needed.
Some phrases that you could use our
– One two three all eyes on me and the kids would respond back with one-two eyes on you
– I heard of one teacher using the phrase hear ye hear ye and all hail the queen to get her students’ attention and it worked like a charm
– Another could be yicky yak and the kids say don’t talk back.
-Lastly, you could just have a symbol that you use that means that students need to quiet down. I subbed for a class on time that did like a fox symbol with their hands which means to quiet down and pay attention. Whatever you chose you to need to establish it with your students so it will get their attention and get them back on task.
There are so many different welcome back-to-school activities that you can do with your students. I hope this has given you some ideas of what you could do with your class. Remember to make it fun and engaging