Are you a teacher madly scrambling to prepare for the first week of school? Are you using your precious holiday downtime, printing, cutting, laminating, and doing all things school-related? Searching online for ideas to fill the time before you kick start your program?

Life as a school teacher does not have to be all work. There is such a thing as work/life balance. Aim to simplify things this year, and you will save yourself countless hours, headaches and gain a life in the meantime.

Maybe one of the first steps you can take is to consider the first week of school activities. It pays to be flexible as changes happen last minute, new students begin without any notice and disruption happens.

There are a few vital basics to include in your first week that you can easily repeat each day that requires little to nil preparation. This is an excellent start to simplifying your teaching workload. Repeat these activities each day for the first week and you will not be sorry. It is essential to establish a class culture early on which saves you time correcting and repeating yourself throughout the year. Start strong and you will not regret it.

Teaching rules and routines

This is a must. Do a little brainstorm of the routines that are required for your stage of kids. Show them what you expect. Roleplay, discuss them, get students input, provide plenty of opportunities to practice each one over and over. Keep going until they get it right. Demand perfection.

For example:

• Walking in two lines

• Lining up to leave the classroom

• Leaving tables to walk to the floor

• Entering and exiting the classroom

• Eating recess and lunch

• Hanging their school bags

• Asking a question

• Afternoon clean up and pack up

• Afternoon dismissal

Class Rules – as a class decide upon your class rules. Display the rules in the classroom and have students sign to say they agree upon them. Revise your school PBL expectations in all settings. This should be covered each day during the first week and often throughout each day.

School Song and Pledge – spend time each day for students to learn and practice the school song and pledge. Add the National Anthem in there too. When teaching the songs, we organised a fun rotation amongst the three Kindy classes, so things didn’t become too stale. Keep it short and sharp also. Once a day for the first week will help to imprint it in the student’s minds.

Literacy

Have students do a bulk loan from the library to have in the classroom for the term. Introduce ten minutes at least of quiet independent reading each day. Start this in the first week of school, so students get into this habit.

Have your list of essential sight words you would expect your class to know and play games such as buzz off, bingo, create a find-a-word.

Every teacher does it; asks their students to write the dreaded holiday recount. Build up to it though, have a lot of discussion of ideas, go over the structure of a recount, show examples, look at poorly written ones and then great examples. Encourage five-star work. Allow students to write it, have others edit it, revise it and then even offer them the chance to publish it. It doesn’t have to be completed on the first day of school. Work on it a little each day.

Have students complete an ‘All About Me’ Questionnaire. Decorate and display these on the class window.

Numeracy

Get the dice, the dominoes, the cards out and play your basic partner or small group games. Little preparation needed and play each game for ten minutes before rotating. Play with the students as well so you can start to get an idea of their number skills.

Provide students with a piece of paper and allow two minutes for them to write as many numbers from 1 as they can. This is an excellent assessment to look out for number formation and what areas of need there is.

Classroom Displays

Provide each student with a piece of small white cardboard to decorate for their name tag for their tray and also for their desk name card. This saves you the time of having to design and print them all during your own time.

Have students create something you can hang up straight away. E.g. self-portrait, name art, summer season collage, directed drawing. Create an artwork based on something they did in the holiday. Students scribe a sentence to attach to their artwork.

Learning Students Names

I love to learn all my student's names off by heart as soon as I can. But it is just as crucial for the students to know each other’s names. Play name games such as each student create an alliteration for their name. Create a find-a-word of student’s names, have one student with their back to everyone, choose one person to say ‘good morning'‘ and they have to guess who said it. Another one is to have one student turn their back then quietly point to one student to remove themselves and then the other must guess who has left.

Play the ‘stand up if’ game. Read from a list and students must stand up if they… can ride a skateboard, have two sisters, went on a plane in the holidays, likes to read, doesn’t like chocolate, must share their bedroom with a sibling. A great game for getting to know your students.

Bingo – quickly draw up a four by four grid and label each box with something similar to the game above e.g. is the eldest in the family, name starts with s, has seen Frozen 2, has been to another country etc. Copy one for each child and they must move around the room asking the other students these questions. They then write their name in the box which relates to them. The first person to find someone for each box wins.

Outdoors

For the first week, I ensure I include lots of partner, and small group activities so you can get an idea of the dynamics of the group. I would take my class outside each day, even if it is for the last ten minutes of the day. I would include a walking tour of the school especially helpful for new students to the school. I would include a game on the court, a running race on the oval and some free time on the play equipment. They will think you are the coolest teacher ever. Take your quiet reading outside if you have bench seating. Teach your class a song outside, or dance. Attempt to think outside the box.

Fun

Having fun in the first week of school will help to ease students nerves and encourage attendance at school. It is critical. Things like running some minute to win it games, pairing up with another class to have a dance-off or a times table math’s challenge. You could even offer to help buddy up with the Kindy kids and help them out with their lunch or craft activity.

Take a photo of each student individually holding up a sign that says ‘my first day of ____ grade’. Super cute memory to have. Print the photos and display them in the classroom. Parents will love to come into the classroom to see these.

You mustn't let these suggested activities dribble on. Keep them short and sharp otherwise, you start to lose their attention and that’s when behaviour problems rear their head. It keeps it fun and students want more. There is always tomorrow.

For more first week of school ideas, activities and links to other blog posts check out my Pinterest account ‘Laura The Explaura’ or click to follow this link.

What has worked for you in the past? Do you have activities that you repeat each year in the first week of school? Feel free to share it below.