Back to school came with some fears and nerves over what was to come. We thought everythng was going back to normal, and by some standards, a lot of normal did return, but things were not completely back to normal. What I noticed about this year, the year everything was "suppose" to go back to normal was that it did not.
The First Few Minutes of Back to School
I was taken aback when the students filtered into my door. The first seconds were not like previous back to school days. This afterall is my 23rd back to school day and I am a bit of a veteran at what first days of school are suppose to look like. The students came in chatting loudly, full of enthusiasm. Generally I see students come in quietly, sit in their desks looking a bit uncomfortable, especially in the first few moments. It was nothing like that this year. From year to year, I do keep some students from the previous year, but there are always some new ones. I teach in a multi-grade classroom, and it is so nice to keep my "kids for multiple years" and sprinkle in a new third grade class and a few new students that may join us in fourth or fifth.
When students arrive, I always, always have an activity to get them started right away. It is something easy that they can start on immediately. For the past few years, I have printed off a paper with each child's name in bubble letters. They are suppose to color their name and also draw a picture of themselves. This paper becomes the front of their work folder later.
Back to School: Around the Room
Putting together the classroom each year, is one of my great pleasures during back to school time. I love finding things to make the classroom beautiful and fun. But if I am being honest, I knew at the end of last year that it just wasn't going to happen this year. I literally walked away, leaving things up so that I could just jump into the curriculum. After a tough year like last year and the year before, with Covid, I knew something had to give. So I gave myself grace and left things as they were the previous year, knowing that it would be OK. New decor was not going to define me. With that said, I did do a few minor things that brought some new touches.
I love this word art wall. This year I added a couple of pieces. I picked them up at Hobby Lobby during a sale. I added the one that says "Be you, Not them" and "All are precious in His sight". I moved the "Put on your positive pants" sign up on the wall instead of leaving it on the shelf. Then I called it good. I would like to hang a class family picture here, but I don't know if I will honestly have the energy or motivation to do it.
One exciting change for me this year was to be able to put the desks back into groups. Last year we had to keep them in straight rows to socially distance as much as possible. We had to avoid group work and team work. It was awful. This year I was so happy that it was allowed once again. I also was able to add my rug back into the room again and also some flexible seating that we were not able to use last year. This picture was taken while orgainizing, so if you see things here and there, just know that they were all tucked safely out of sight before the opening day.
My classroom library needed a few minor fixes. My own kids helped me organize the books again and I reprinted labels that were torn from last year and called it good. For the book boxes, I added new labels with student names and I also added a sticker name tag to the shelf so they would know where to return it when they were done reading each day. I wanted the students to keep the shelf in ABC order and this makes it much easier. Also, the library set up is super easy and I will do a post on how I set that up sometime soon.
I love to have a super cute planner. The Happy Planner is perfect. They come in many different styles and are also durable. The pretty patterns are so fun and I enjoy choosing one each year. I saw a student display area like this on Instagram somewhere and I really liked how it looked, so I decided to create one of my own with a different theme. This superhero theme really caught the students' eyes and they were wondering right away what it was all about.
One thing that I love to do is to make sure that when my student's come into the room it feels like they belong. I do this through making sure their name is displayed in multiple places. This year, I had the covers for their folders on their desks with their name printed in a large font. I had these superhero student display frames with their names on them just as they walk into the classroom door. At the other side of the classroom the library book boxes have their names as well. Creating a sense of belong is so important.
Back to School: S.T.E.M. & Team Building
I love to do S.T.E.M. during back to school time. I take time to teach students how to work together and share ideas while also respecting the ideas of others. It is important for them to do this well because we will be working in teams all year long doing various projects and activities. Another reason I love S.T.E.M. for back to school is that it also doubles as a team building task. During the first day of school we did a S.T.E.M. project each day and established roles that were switched daily to make sure each student had a job and that no one monopolized the time.
Here are some of the S.T.E.M. projects we did.
1. Help Harry: This one was super cute and lots of fun. Best of all it was free! The premise is that Harry (a pompom with eyeballs) wants to be able to see the class but he is so short that it is hard for him to do so. The team must build him a look out tower so that he will be able to see the class well.
2. Beach Ball Boogie: In this challenge, students were to create a carrier for a beach ball. Afterwards, they competed in a beach ball relay race with their teams. So much fun and also completely free.
3. Apples Ahead: Also a relay, this challenge had students each build their own carrier that was to sit on top of their head and hold an apple while they raced. This one is not free, but it was not expensive.
4. Art Chopped Challenge: I love this fun art challenge that is patterned after the Chopped food show. In this challenge each group of students receives a bag of art supplies The teams also get a card with the theme on it. They must come up with a product, using the supplies in the bag that fits the theme. The theme we did was summer.
Back to School: Get to Know You Activities
Get to know you activities are important during back to school time. This year, I did not have any students that were new to the school, however third grade came to my room as new (to me) students. We all know each other a bit, but there are still things to learn. Here a are few get to know you activities that I did this year.
1. Back to School Scavenger Hunt: This is the perfect way to start the first day and get students meeting and interacting with one another. You can find tons of different free ones all over the internet. This is a free one you can use.
This one was fun to use this year. It is in a set of back to school activities from Amy Lemons. You can find it here.
Back to School: Books
I have a multi-grade level classroom. I teach grades 3-5. Because of that, I keep many of the same students for three years, so I really have to shake things up when if comes to the activities that I plan. I need at least a three year cycle of back to school activities and even books. I do believe in rereading some books from year-to-year, but I also want some fresh inspiring books to challenge our thinking. Here are some of the books that I used this year.
1. First Day Jitters
I love this book and use it every single year. I also do a writing & emoji craftivity after reading it every year, but I so it a bit differently each time. This year, after reading the book, I taught my students through the use of one of my passions, sewing. We learned how to sew. Basically, I precut circles of yellow felt and we sewed around them, added stuffing and sewed them the rest of the way up to create a small circle-shaped pillow. After that, students had to think about how they felt coming into school for their first day in this new grade. They cut out pieces of felt in black, red, white, and blue to create a face that showed their emotion on the big day. We had patterns that students could opt to use those if they did not feel confident in creating their own shapes.
2. A Letter From Your Teacher: This is a book I just discovered this summer with only enough time to order from Amazon and get it days before school started. I love this book. It is written as though it is a letter from the teacher to the students on the first day of school. At the end of the book there is even a blank spot where the teacher can sign his/her name. After I read "my letter" to the students, " I had the students write a letter back to me. In it, they could tell me anything they wished. It was a quick way to find out things about each child and also gave me another sample of their writing for a beginning of the year benchmark.
3. The Energy Bus: I had not read this one before and it was definitely a keeper. It was about mindset and staying positive and not letting people take your positivity away. We talked about this one more than once. I will keep it on the list for futrue back to school days.
4. I Promise: This book by Lebron James was a winner in my class. The students loved that it was by a famous basketball star and also liked the promises inside. Instead of creating rules, why not create classroom promises? After reading this book, my class created a list of promises. We compiled them and voted on which were the top five most important ones. Those will become our promises (rules) for the year.
We kept the first week very low-key. Lots of routine practicing, math and reading rotation practicing, going over procedures, and mixing it up with get-to-know you activities, S.T.E.M. projects, books, all the things that build a community and make it special.
If you want to see other posts about back to school, you can find those here.
