The first week of school brings ALL the feels! It’s a mixture of excited to meet new students, nervous about planning, and sad that summer is ending. We’re here to help make your first week of school AMAZING. We’re going to discuss 5 important things to help you totally rock this week and enjoy the rest of your summer days without the back to school scaries. So if you’re ready, let’s dive into 5 great tips for the first week’s success and of course leave you with some awesome freebies!
#1 – OVER PLAN for First Week Success
The first week, let alone the first day, can be SO overwhelming. One trick I’ve learned over the years is to OVER PLAN. Create yourself an abundance of plans. Why? My reason is simple- it’s better to have too much to do, than not enough. Down time is the enemy of behavior management, especially during those first few weeks of school together. So how do you have a successful first week of school with students? Steal my first week plans! I have compiled a list of 25+ amazing activities so that you can spend the time getting to know your students, creating memories, with ZERO stress.
Editable First Week of School Lesson Plans
Some of the fun activities in the first week plans includes Reading First Day Jitters with students and completing a feelings activity. This helps students feel comfortable and understand that they may not be the only one feeling nervous, excited, or scared on this day. We do a graphing activity on how we feel, write a bit about our emotions, and create a cute house craft about our first day feelings. They LOVE it!
On the first day we build in some movement is by taking a scavenger hunt. This can be done around the classroom or around the school! This is a great way for students to become familiar with their space while moving around.
As the first week goes on, there will be many natural opportunities to introduce and practice with each of their school supplies. They don’t need them all on day one and I definitely wouldn’t recommend introducing them all at once for kinders. Instead over the week, plan activities for students to learn about each of the expectations and build in time to practice with each.
All these activities and more are included in the complete First Week of School Kit.
#2 – First Week Success Community Building Activities
Just like this quote below, above all else, as the first week commences, I want students to leave feeling excited, loved, and ready for their brand new year in their brand new class. That’s why tip number two is to build in ALL the community building activities during the first week of school. This is HUGE for first week success. See a few easy favorites below!
The Cup Stacking Challenge – practice BEING a good teammate in groups of 4 or 5. Each group is given a stack of cups and a rubber band with 4 or 5 paper clips (based on the number of students in the group). They are NOT allowed to touch the cups or rubber bands, ONLY their paperclip, and they have to work as a group to stack the cups into a pyramid! Students love the challenge and although some get super frustrated, it’s a great way for them to practice great teamwork skills!
All About Me Bags – are another great way to get to know students while involving their families. Students collect a few small items from home and put them in their bag. Throughout the week, students take turns sharing the items from their bag so that the class can get to know each other a little better.
This activity is also a great time filler during that down time you may have that first week. Grab your FREEBIE below!
Find a Friend Bingo – some activities we do that first week incorporate moving around and one favorite is Find a Friend Bingo! It’s a great way for students to connect by getting to know each other better while also getting some wiggles out! Have them walk around the classroom or take them outside. Either way, it’s a great first day/week activity that they absolutely love.
The First Week Survival Kit balances building community with teaching important expectations and getting to know each other. There are detailed plans with each activity as well as a optional paired mentor texts. It can be so hard to balance all these important first week things. That’s why we’ve mapped out every step of the first week for you: from the moment they walk through your door on the first day to the moment they leave after the first week. You’ll have everything you need to thrive from the start and more! What’s next of course but setting that solid foundation of expectations and procedures from the ground up.
#3 – The Power of Procedures
There is a lot when it comes to meeting the goal of building a classroom community. It’s our job to help students feel safe and welcoming, learn everyone’s names, and foster a family. It’s also really important to spend A LOT of time setting up expectations, creating rules/commitments together, and practicing routines and procedures with students. All of these things are crucial when it comes to first week success. This sets up your foundation for the ENTIRE school year together. Just like we want students to know they are part of a family that cares, they also need to know about boundaries and expectations so that we can all get our needs met.
After we’ve established what’s important to how we’d like our classroom to feel and run, we must dive deep into different procedures and expectations. Here we incorporate different literature for students to scaffold and support. There is a lot of thinking and planning that goes into teaching expectations to students. One of the most helpful tips I’ve learned is to teach students exactly what it looks like and sounds like for EVERY procedure. This teaches students exactly what is expected. Then when you practice, you make sure that EVERY SINGLE STUDENT is following the expectation. This is where you set high expectations for ALL students. That way your year is a BREEZE with students because they know EXACTLY what is expected of them.
#4 – Goals for First Week Success
This seems like a really loaded word because there are SO many things to accomplish the first week of school with students. If you set a few really important goals for yourself though, it will help narrow down your focus this first week. This will allow you to spend time on the things that matter the most. While this list could probably go on forever, I’ve found what I believe are the top 5 goals to set for yourself that first week of school. These few easy objectives will help you feel accomplished and not so overwhelmed and stressed.
By the end of the first week, the most important goals to have met are:
- Learn everyone’s names
- Begin to build a strong classroom community through teamwork, values, and a safe welcoming environment
- Get to know each other
- Set up a strong foundation for classroom expectations and procedures
- Get everyone home safely
Not too many goals right? The First Week Kit can easily help you accomplish these important goals and get your year started off on the right foot from day one!
#5 – Set Yourself Up for the Ultimate First Week Success
This First Week Kit is an absolute MUST HAVE!! It has been designed to include EVERYTHING you need for the first 5 days of school. We’re talking
- Detailed Lesson Plans
- 25+ Activities for Building Relationships and a Sense of Team
- Paired Mentor Texts and Activities
- Easy to Follow Assembly Instructions
- And SO Much MORE!
I have taken YEARS of learning, hard work, mistakes, and activities to compile this amazing tool! Let me help plan out your entire first week of school with NO hard work for you. You’ll walk into your classroom day one with an overabundance of activities and plans so that you know exactly what to do. This way you can focus on what really matters- spending the time getting to know your amazing new group of kiddos.
You’ll have the first 5 days of school planned out and I guarantee you’ll have activities leftover to get you through the first month of school. I’ll show you how and when to teach important procedures during the first week so that you will have a solid foundation built with students.
There are editable plans included so that you can make it to meet your specific classroom needs. Be amazed at how much will be taken off your plate the first week of school! With that weight lifted, you can actually ENJOY your time with your new class. It’s truly a must have for first week success.
All this and more is part of the First Week of School Bundle! You’ll be OVER planned for the first week with TONS of activities that your students will love. The best part is it takes the stress off YOU so that you can also enjoy this momentous time that only happens once a year.
If you loved this and want even more ideas for the beginning of school, check out THESE posts below:
Top 5 Classroom Management Hacks for Back to School
The Ultimate First Week of School Kit
Why I Don’t Dig Into Curriculum for the First Few Weeks of School
I really hope you enjoyed learning more about tips, tricks, ideas for first week success with students! Don’t forget to subscribe to my email list! Not only will you get the most up to date tips, tricks, and classroom projects… and of course more fun FREEBIES including the All About Me Bag FREEBIE! You will also have exclusive access to tons of digital how to videos! If you would like to learn about this and other things happening in my classroom follow me @sweetnsauerfirsties on Instagram.
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