Fun (and Productive!) First Day Activities
The first day of school gives us all the feels! ❤️ Teachers and students alike may be feeling excited, nervous, shy, and even a bit silly.
Fun and engaging activities that help your students learn about each other – and about you and your expectations – go a long way toward making everyone comfortable and starting the year off on the right foot! Try the activities below to make the first day memorable, meaningful, and productive:
- Get to Know Each Other!
Some of your students may already know each other, but some may be new, and most won’t know YOU! Help break the ice and bring your students together with a simple whiteboard activity to find out more about each other.
Start by writing two tor four choices at the top of the board – for example, kickball, tetherball, and four square.
Then, depending on their capabilities, have your students raise their hand and say their name, come up to the board and line up, or write their names on the board.
If you’re using Magnetic Name Plates in your classroom, have students come up and place their Name Plate in the proper column on the board to indicate their choice.
Repeat with favorite subject, desserts, YouTubers, Marvel vs DC, etc. Don’t forget to add your own name to the lists!
- Better…Together!
Students and teachers come in all different shapes, sizes, colors…and more. AND, when we come together, we make something BEAUTIFUL!
Demonstrate, with a whole-class pattern blocks activity, that working together makes your whole class better.
Give each student several geometrically-shaped pieces of construction paper, plastic pattern blocks, or Foam Fun Pattern Block pieces. Have students work in groups – or as a whole class – to fit their pieces together into a unique shape or design on the desk, floor, or whiteboard.
Take pictures of their creations and display them around the room as a reminder that they are better when they work together.
- Collaborate on Classroom Rules
Demonstrate democracy in action by working together to create your classroom rules.
Give your students some thought starters, such as when they might talk and when they should stay quiet, when they can get up from their desks, the best way to get your attention, how they should treat each other, and what happens when the rules are broken.
Brainstorm ideas as a whole class. Write each idea on the whiteboard, discuss how you might make each rule better, then vote on which to keep.
If students are advanced enough to write, put them in small groups, assign each group one of the final rules, and have them work together to write the rule on a Large Magnet Sentence Strip. Then, have the groups place all their sentence strips on the board, where the rules can stay all year long.
- Let Your Style Shine!
Nothing helps students settle in more than personalizing their space! Let your students share their style by giving them time to add some decorative touches to their desks, cubbies, or lockers.
Provide construction paper, child-safe scissors, and markers for students to cut out and color shapes. Try easy origami projects, too. (If needed, use cellophane or masking tape to keep folded origami creations from coming apart.)
Hand out sticky notes for students to decorate to create colorful photo frames. Use a digital camera and your printer to take (and then print) students’ photos that they can cut out and place inside the sticky note frames.
Use peel-and-stick magnetic tape and dots on the backs of the colored shapes and/or sticky note frames to create interchangeable magnetic decorations that will stick to magnetic-receptive surfaces.
Origami projects will be a bit heavier, so use magnet strip instead if you want them to stick to flat surfaces, or magnetic hooks and string to hang them from the ceiling.
If you’re using Magnetic Name Plates, students can also decorate their plates with various colors of dry-erase markers.
Helping your students get to know each other (and you!), establishing rules, and creating a space where each student feels like they belong are the first steps to starting the year off right. Happy first day of school!
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