Scholastic Activities for the First Day of School

Give the students simple art supplies and get them thinking.

Starting off on the right foot on the first day of school involves creating activities that are not only engaging and fun, but will help students build expectations and goals for the school year. Give the students exercises that will create a classroom community, opportunities for introductions and bonding, and a sense of responsibility in their own roles in the classroom.

Getting to Know You

Have them interview and introduce each other to the class.

Dive right into the first day as a class with introduction projects in small groups or partners. Create a questionnaire the students can follow, including questions about such things as their families, favorite things (subject, color, animal, song, food) and summer adventures. Try to include unusual questions that will elicit surprising and more interesting answers. They'll interview each other and present their partners to the class. Give them giant paper and markers on which to trace the outline of their partner's body, then write the answers inside of the outline. They can use the sheet in presentations of their partners to the class. These can be hung on the wall to remind everyone of "who we are" during the first weeks of school.

Where Am I?

Give students a list of things to find to orient them with the space.

Create a scavenger hunt of important items in the room and things they should know the locations of. Examples are lockers, extra chalk, art supplies, personal folders or portfolios and reference books. Give them a little time to hunt around the room and check off the items as they go. Maybe put time limits on the game to see who can find everything on the list in the shortest amount of time. This is a great way for them to get to know the space and expel a little energy.

Create a Class Contract

Using the chalkboard, whiteboard or a Velcro bulletin board, brainstorm ideas for a class contract. Let the kids write or stick their own ideas to the board, including expectations they have for the year, expectations they have for you, goals that are both academic and extracurricular, and rules they think they should adhere to. Include your own teacher additions. When everything is up on the board, start organizing the ideas into groups of commonality: What did we write that is similar? What did we write that is completely individual? From the web, create a contract for the class that you can refer to throughout the year.

What Do You Know?

Give an ungraded pretest.

To determine where each student stands academically, the first day is a perfect opportunity to get right down to business with a test. Looking over your year lesson plan, give a pretest that assesses the students' knowledge of these topics from the previous year. Build it primarily from things they should know, but include a few surprise questions to get them thinking on the spot. The pretest will help you determine their aptitude, and it'll give the students a taste of what kind of test you give, sans the grading consequence. Remind them multiple times that it won't be graded.

Orchestrate

Organize students into a homemade orchestra.

To either begin or finish the first day, give each of the students a small instrument or an improvised instrument from classroom materials. Listen to a few classical compositions to get them inspired, then discuss what it means to play as a group. Let them each experiment with their instruments for a few minutes in aural chaos, then bring them together, having each student choose one beat and sound to carry with their instrument. Starting them one at a time, add each student to the equation to create your class orchestra. Composing "music" is a fantastic group activity that requires some mental energy and focus.

References

• Pro Teacher
• Teacher Talk

Resources

• Education World: Lesson Planning