3 Tips and Tricks for those first few days back to school

There are so many good ideas for students to get to know each other on the first days of school, but if you're like I was in 6th grade, by the third or fourth day, those activities dropped off in favor of practicing routines and getting to the business of learning.

Here are a few tips for those first few days.

1. Get kids moving

It can be for something as simple as quiet reading time.  In my classroom, you could read anywhere in the room, but you needed to have everything with you once you settled in.  That meant having tissues if you had a runny nose, making sure you had your pencil and journal if you planned to respond to a reading prompt, or having a second book if you were close to finishing the first one.

Once you sat down, you were there for the time allotted.  Some kids liked sitting at their desks, others liked flexible seating options, or curling up on the carpet with a pillow.

Whatever their choice, we practiced moving into place quietly and quickly. 

2.  Read to them

Show your students that reading is an important part of being in your class.  

There are tons of good "first day" picture books, but I especially liked reading this one because there's also a 15-minute video version of it.  Both are beautiful!  Read the book, have students watch the video, and then compare and contrast the two.  Show them that reading can be for pleasure and that they can also think critically about what they've read.

Here's the link if you want to watch it.

3.  Play a get-to-know-you game

This is a good way for students to learn more about each other, using a Frayer model that you might use at other times in your classroom.

Click here to get this freebie Frayer model for this activity.

• Give each student a card of some kind that has only one "mate" (from a deck of cards, a paint chip, or partner cards)
• Explain that they'll use the Frayer model to interview a classmate 
• Get them moving to find their mate (maybe do this silently?) and interview them.  After 5-10 minutes, bring them back together.
• Have students share one of the quadrants about their interviewee, maybe the first one with four things the student likes; let all the students introduce their partner and say those things about them.
• Next, have students find a new partner, someone with whom they have something in common.
• As they partner up, listen in and identify the interests they have in common with other groups.  
• If you dare (!) have the pairs find another pair with a similar interest.  Keep doing that until there are no pairs left.
• Share out what new information they learned about their classmates.  The idea is to see that students have more in common than not.

You may want to stop then, so collect papers for another time.  This activity has gotten students talking to, and learning about each other, and that's the goal for these early days. 

• If you like this activity, take a closer look at this Back to School Get to Know You resource.
  
• All my resources will be on sale on TeachersPayTeachers this Tuesday and Wednesday.  Use the code BTS24 at checkout to get 25% off the total cost!