CCP: Episode 28 // 8 Tips for Having the Best First Day of School...EVER!
The first day of school is typically filled with all kinds of emotions.
You're excited to meet your new students, show off your fresh classroom, and dive in to a brand new year.
You're also likely feeling over-whelmed, scatter-brained (feeling like you are forgetting something...), and pressed for time to get it all done before day one.
Setting a positive tone on the first day of school is crucial to setting yourself up for success. In this episode, allow me to walk you through your survival guide for having the best first day of school!
Highlights from The Episode:
Tip 1: Create a first day of school checklist (4:03)
Tip 2: Welcome your students back with a yummy treat! (7:06)
Tip 3: Prepare a welcome activity to complete on arrival (7:42)
Tip 4: Plan to take your students on a classroom tour (9:10)
Tip 5: Have students complete a fun writing assessment (12:06)
Tip 6: Plan a “Getting to Know You” activity that gets students up and moving (14:03)
Tip 7: Teach your routines & procedures (15:55)
Tip 8: Have extra back-up activities prepared in case you have extra time during your day (17:24)
Links & Resources Mentioned in the Episode:
Grab a FREE Roll & Writing Activity
Episode 27: Developing a Strong Classroom Management System (includes FREE routines & procedures checklist)
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Transcript
Ep. 28: How to Have the Best First Day of School transcript powered by Sonix—easily convert your audio to text with Sonix.
Ep. 28: How to Have the Best First Day of School was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best audio automated transcription service in 2020. Our automated transcription algorithms works with many of the popular audio file formats.
Hey, teachers, if you have a classroom and a commute, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Rachael, and I want to ride along with you each week on your ride into school. This podcast is the place for busy teachers who want actionable tips, simple strategies, and just want to enjoy their job more. Let's go.
Hello there! Welcome to another episode of The Classroom Commute Podcast, I am Rachael your host. I am so glad that you're here with me today. If you're listening to this episode at the time that it goes live, hopefully you are enjoying a well-deserved summer break and taking a little time for yourself to relax, rejuvenate, and refresh yourself before you have to dive into another school year. Even more so, I hope that to help you feel less stressed about the school year, that you've taken advantage of participating in the 'Getting Your Year in Gear' teacher summer challenge that's going on right now. It's a self-paced challenge and it's completely free. If you sign up, you will be walked through all the important back to school steps that it takes to have a successful year including, planning for your classroom design, getting yourself organized, planning those long range curriculum plans, building your classroom community and so much more. If you haven't taken the chance to sign up for the free challenge, you can still do so. It's completely free and you can find all the details at classroomnook.com/yearingear.
Speaking of planning for a new school year, today I want to talk to you about how to have the best first day of school ever. The first day of school is typically filled with all kinds of emotions. You're excited to meet your new students. You're ready to show off your fresh new classroom that will never be more beautiful than the first day of school. You're ready to hopefully dive into a brand new school year. But you're also likely feeling overwhelmed, scatterbrain maybe a little bit. Although if you took the 'Getting Your Year in Gear' teacher summer challenge, hopefully that isn't the case. But you're usually feeling like you're forgetting something on that first day of school and you feel pressed for time to get everything done before that first day of school arrives. So today I want to help break down some simple things that you can do to make sure that you do have the best first day that you're prepared and you're ready.
Before we do that, I want to give a quick shout out to somebody who left a really great review over at iTunes for the podcast. This review comes from teakdog, teakdog says "Love The Classroom Commute Podcast. I've been listening to Rachael on the Classroom Commute since the first episode. I look forward to a new podcast to listen to each week. I especially like how the tips are super practical and get me inspired to try new ideas in my classroom. Thanks Rachael." Well thank you, teakdog for leaving a quick review! It means so much to me and I'm so glad that you are loving the podcast. If you would like to leave a review on the podcast, I would appreciate that so much. It helps me reach more teachers, get into more earbuds, car stereos, and everything. I would appreciate it if you have a quick moment to leave a review over on iTunes. You can do that by swiping up to where you're listening to this in your Apple podcast and you will find the review section. Thank you so much.
All right. Let's tackle the first day of school. I'm going to be talking about a lot of things in this episode and a lot of freebies as well. So you're going to want to make sure that you go over to the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/28 to get all the freebies that I'm going to be featuring in this episode, along with some other resources and links that will help you plan for your first day of school. Setting a positive tone on your first day of school is so crucial to setting yourself up for success. So allow me to walk you through some survival tips for how to have that best first day that we all dream of.
My first tip for you is to create a first day of school checklist. So just a checklist for that first day of school, because it's easy to begin thinking way ahead to your first reading units that you're going to be covering, what centers your students are going to begin with. But it's also just as important to think specifically about the first day to make sure that you've got everything prepped and ready to go. So having a checklist of things that may need to be completed specifically for the first day will help to minimize that scatterbrain feeling and help to really isolate your thoughts to focus on day one only. So here are some things that you might want to include on that checklist to have completed before the first day of school. The first thing, print off a class list and your class schedule. This may seem obvious, but sometimes we don't think to do this. It's nice to just have that on your desk ready to go with your list of your students and the schedule that you are going to be following. Another thing to put on your checklist is to make a list of all the student copies that you need for just that first day. Make a list of copies that you need for papers that you're going to be sending home with students on that first day. Things like those emergency forms, parent letters, and other forms and sheets that we send home on that first day of school. Your checklist is also going to want to include writing out your plans and your lessons and your activities for that first day. That one seems pretty obvious, but it's worth putting on our checklist. Remember, this checklist is just a list of all the things that we need to have done before the first day of school. So as you go down your checklist, you can make sure that these are completed. Prep any icebreaker games and list all of the materials that you're going to need and make copies for those activities. Prep a fun welcome back gift for your students. Prep any activities for students to complete as they arrive. You always want to have something on their desk before they arrive. We'll talk about that in a minute. Prep any anchor charts or whiteboard, smart board charts that you want to have ready for the first day of school. Gather any read aloud that you're going to use on that first day of school and prep any extra backup activities that you're going to have. All of these things are going to be listed on your checklist so that you make sure you get them done and you can check them off as you go. Now, I actually have a free first day of school checklist that includes all of these items and spaces for you to record notes and reminders to yourself. If you want access to that free checklist, just head over to the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/28 and you can download this for yourself and use it for your first day of school planning.
Now that we have our checklist, let's talk about some of those items on our checklist and some tips and strategies for how to get them done. One thing that I always did on the first day of school was to welcome my students with a yummy treat on their desk. Students love to see something special for them on their desk when they arrive on day one. Why not greet them with something to snack on while they work on a welcome activity or craft? You can even do something as simple as putting pretzels or goldfish in a snack sized baggie and top it off with a cute little bag topper to welcome them on that first day. Nothing gets people more excited than food so start your day off right, give them a little snack as they're arriving.
That leads me right into my next tip for planning for your best first day is to prepare a welcome activity. So you have that little treat sitting on their desk. But you also want to have an activity that they can complete that's sitting on their desk waiting for them when they first arrive. That first hour of the first day can be really hectic as you're greeting students and parents as they're coming in. Be sure to have an activity on their desk ready for them to complete as they arrive, this activity should require very little direction from you. You want to have it so that they can get started on their own. You might choose to have an example of the activity posted in the front of the class for students to refer to. You might also want to put up some directions on your smart board or your whiteboard or a piece of chart paper listing out exactly step by step what you're expecting from them and then have any materials such as crayons, markers or scissors readily available for students to use. Either have it right on their desk or in a central location where they can come get it and complete their activity. One simple activity that I always had my students complete was an All About Me poster. It's just like what it sounds like, they put their name, their birthday, and some fun facts about them. They draw pictures of themselves and their family and friends. They might list things like their favorite movie or TV show, their favorite hobby and book and their favorite subject. It's something really simple that they don't really need a whole lot of direction to complete.
My next tip for helping you have the best first day is to plan to take your students on a classroom tour. Students love entering their new classroom for the first time, but they're probably anxious to learn where they'll be sitting, where the art supplies are kept, where the gathering area will be, and of course, where are those free time games going to be kept?, among other things. So one fun activity that I love doing with my students on the first day of school was giving students an opportunity to explore their new classroom through a classroom scavenger hunt. Students were broken up into teams and they were given clue cards that led them to different sections of the room, such as the classroom library, the listening center, and the supplies cupboard and so much more. At each section of the classroom, the teams also collected a little goodie that they can enjoy once the scavenger hunt was completed. They snacked on these treats while we went over the scavenger hunt locations and I explained more about each location. Let me give you an example of what this looks like as they work through the scavenger hunt. The first card that a team might get would say something like this, "You're in a brand new classroom and it's time to learn where everything is. Follow the clues to find out where your teacher keeps all the important things you will be using this school year. Clue #1, you'll probably be visiting this area of the classroom every day. It's a place where you can go to find information about a specific topic or find stories that are adventurous, funny, scary and more." After students read that first clue, they hopefully know to go find the classroom library and at the classroom library is their clue #2. Now, I would color code this so that the orange team would only pick up orange clues and the blue team would only pick up blue clues. These clues for each team were in different orders so that the teams weren't running into each other or just following each other to the next location. Everybody was going to find their clue cards in a different order. And then when they finished their scavenger hunt, they would find their last clue card that would say, "You're finished. Great work. Head back to your seat." So it just kind of gave them a chance to work their way around the classroom. The clues were obvious. It wasn't meant to be something difficult for them to do. It was just a fun way for them to get moving, work together in some small groups and get to know their classroom a bit. So if you want to move away from the traditional way of introducing the parts of your classroom, try a scavenger hunt. Now, if you would like to grab a ready made scavenger hunt, I put together a set of clues that you can use. I've included this in my First Day of School Starter Kit which I will link to in the show notes. It includes a scavenger hunt, among other resources, such as that, all about me poster that I talked about a few minutes ago and lots of other things as well. I will link to that resource in the show notes.
My next tip for having the best day of school is to have students complete a fun writing assignment. We know how huge data collecting is in today's classroom, so why not begin on day one with an authentic writing piece that's really fun for the students to do. Teachers are always collecting baseline assessments for where their students are at in their learning. And one fun way to do this is right from the start to give students a writing activity that doesn't feel like work, but rather more like a game. And I've used these throughout the school year. They're called 'roll and write'. So how it works is there are three columns on their 'roll and write' writing prompt sheet. The first column is characters. The second column is settings. The third column is plot. Students roll a die to see what their character, setting, and plot is going to be. So for each column, there are six choices, one for each number on the die. So for example, if a student rolls a number one, their character is Miss Jarvis, the principal. If they roll a two for setting, the setting is at the gym on the first day of school. And if they roll a six for the plot, they have to somehow include that the character trips in the hallway. So they put these three elements together to write a fun story. And a lot of times they're really silly because they're just rolling the die and getting these random groupings of the setting, character and plot. They are a lot of fun and students really usually get a kick out of them. I do have a free 'roll and write" writing template over at the show notes, it's inside our Members Resource Library, you can get the link to that at classroomnook.com/podcast/28 if this is something that you want to try with your students on the first day of school. I also have a back to school version of the 'roll and write' template in my first day of school starter kit and I will again link to that resource in the show notes.
All right. Moving on, I'm a big fan of keeping students moving on the first day of school and limiting the amount of time that they're just sitting at their desks or their work spaces listening to me talk. So the more I can get them up and moving and talking with each other, the better I feel my day goes because students are really excited and engaged to be in the classroom on that first day. So my next tip to you is to plan a getting to know you activity. Students are going to want to know who they'll be sharing their classroom with this year, and they may not always know the other students in their class. They also don't want to be sitting at their desks all day listening to you talk. One fun icebreaker game that I use on the first day of school is called walk and talk. It's easy to prep and students can walk around the room and meet lots of new students in a very short period of time. Here's how it works, you prepare ahead of time a set of cards that have some getting to know you questions on it, things like, if you could travel anywhere, where would you go?, what's your favorite band or musician?, what's your favorite subject?, what's the best thing that you did this past summer?, things like that. Things that students can answer very easily and usually don't mind sharing. Students are each given one of these getting to know you question cards, then they walk around the room to quickly find a partner to ask their question to. Then their partner would ask the question on their card in return, after the partners have had a chance to answer each other's questions and maybe had any follow up questions, they'll trade cards and go find a new partner with their new question. You can do this for as long as time allows. It's OK if students don't get to meet every single student. It's just a fun way to break the ice a bit and let students get up, talk and walk around. It's so fun, so easy. So plan a getting to know you activity.
All right. I've talked about a lot of fun things, but that first day of school, you also got to get right down to business. And by that, I mean you need to teach your routines and your procedures. If you've been listening the last two episodes, you might be a little tired of me talking about routines and procedures, but that just shows how important I think they are. I'm not going to go into all the details cause I did just cover all about routines and procedures in Episode 27, all about Classroom Management. I also have a resource over on the website that I will link to in the show notes where you can get a little checklist to make sure that you're covering all your routines and procedures. It covers how I teach routines and procedures, so make sure you check that out and I will link to last week's episode, as well as the blog post, where I go into great detail about it in the show notes. But what I will say about it is that many teachers make the mistake to skip teaching routines and procedures on that first day. They think that they're just going to focus on doing fun activities to help students feel more welcome and excited about their new teacher in their new classroom. And while you want to do that, to have a welcoming environment, students actually want to feel the sense of structure and process in their classroom. This will help them to feel safe in their unfamiliar place. It also helps to set up the expectations that you will hold them to all year long. So remember, head to the show notes and get that free checklist and learn all about how to teach routines and procedures beginning on day one.
All right. Final tip about how to have the best day of school. I don't have to tell you that teaching is an unpredictable job. Even when you think you've planned your day down to a tee, there's going to always be interruptions and unexpected things that happen. So to ensure that you are not left with a classroom full of students with a bunch of leftover time before the end of the day. Make sure to have an extra few activities on hand in case you need them. I have a resource over at the website with back to school activities for a variety of grade levels. Make sure you check that out if you need a few ideas. But be sure to have at least one or two go-to activities that are going to be simple to pull out should you find yourself with a little extra time.
All right. There you have it. My best tips for having the best first day of school ever. Let's go ahead and run through them one more time. The first step is to have a first day of school checklist to make sure that you do not miss a single thing that you need to have prepped for that first day of school. I have a free checklist over at the show notes so make sure you grab that. My second tip is to welcome your students with a yummy treat on their desk as they're arriving. That is followed closely by making sure that you have a welcome activity on their desk so that they can work on their activity while enjoying that yummy treat. The next tip is to plan to take your students on a classroom tour. And I suggest doing it in a fun way through a classroom scavenger hunt, if you'd like to do that. The next step is to have students complete a fun writing assignment like a 'roll and write' activity. Plan a getting to know you activity is important to get your students up and moving. Plan to teach routines and procedures on that first day of school. And finally, to have some backup plan activities just in case you've got extra time to kill before you send your students home on that first day of school. And if you want an easy way to make sure all this happens, check out my first day of school teacher survival kit that includes an all about me poster, a writing activity, a classroom scavenger hunt, the walk and talk activity, and a bunch of other things that will really help you to have a solid first day of school.
All right. That's all for me today, guys. I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day. And I will be back again next week with another episode of The Classroom Commute Podcast. Bye for now.
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