Easy To Prep Activities For Back To School
The first week of school is quickly approaching and I know you’re feeling all the feels… From excitement to stress to anxiety to sadness and everything in between. Planning for the first week of second grade can be overwhelming after all the back to school events for your own classroom (and for your own children if you have school-aged children too!), so I’m excited to share some different activities that you can do to shorten the hours of planning that you have to do!
All of these activities can be found in our First Week Of Second Grade Bundle.
The Morning Of The First Day Of School
For the morning of the first day of school, I set up each student’s desk with a playdough mat, a can of playdough, and a coloring page. This makes that transition into the classroom much simpler than answering a bunch of “what do I do now?” questions. Students come in and make the design with their playdough and color the page. They can build with their playdough if they finish before it’s time to move on.
This makes it so that you can help students put supplies away, figure out lunch count, take attendance, and chat with caregivers when they are dropping their students off.
You can read more about this routine here.
Classroom Tour
One thing you’ll need to do during the first week of school is give a classroom tour so students can find what they need! Instead of walking around to point out the different areas, we use this “write the room” type game. Hang the cards around the room and students find them, write it down, and draw where it is in the room. The chances of them remembering where everything is is higher since they will be writing it down and drawing it.
School Tour
Besides a classroom tour, you’ll also need to give a school tour. To give a school tour, read The Gingerbread Man Loose At School. My students have always loved these gingerbread books! You’ll hang up the cards in the correct places around the school and take your class around to have them figure out the riddles and learn where different parts of the school are.
I know that in second grade, they’ve typically been in this school for two years and probably know where everything is, but it’s always a good refresher and a good excuse to get out of the room to walk around. Plus, if you have new students then they’ll need to know where everything is too!
Kissing Hand Activities
Who doesn’t love to read The Kissing Hand during the first week of school? Even in second grade, students are nervous and sad to leave their caretakers. After reading this book, discuss how your students are feeling and chart it. Then, they can draw who is special to them on their heart to glue on the paper hand.
These hands make for a fun little bulletin board for the first week of school too!
We Don’t Eat Our Classmates Activities
This is one of my new favorites to read during the first week of school! Read We Don’t Eat Our Classmates and discuss friendly and unfriendly behavior. You can use the whole group sort to help as well. Then, students create a lunchbox with different pieces of lunch to explain what they look for in a friend.
Would You Rather…?
Have you heard of the game “Four Corners”? This is similar but with 2 corners. Show the slide on the board and ask students which they would rather. Then, they go to the corner for their preferred answer.
Goal Banners
These goal banners are fun to hang in the classroom. They are a good reminder for what we are working on throughout second grade.
Learning The Rules
During the first week of second grade, you’ll be teaching and reviewing rules a lot. Then, you’ll be teaching and reviewing rules some more. One fun way to do this is with the game “Your Teacher Says”, which is based off of “Simon Says”. Read the card to your students. If it’s something that’s an acceptable school behavior, they should do it. If it’s something that is not an acceptable school behavior, they stand still.
After playing, you can chart the behaviors as “School Behavior” and “Not School Behavior”.
Musical Chairs
Let’s play musical chairs, but make it back to school friendly! Here’s an ice breaker for the first week of school! Set up chairs as musical chairs in a circle. Play just like you would play, but the person that gets “out” has to draw a card and answer the question.
In this game, you don’t have to take a chair away each time. You can just keep playing and letting students answer the questions when they are “out”.
What Else Is Included?
- Dismissal Tags: Make sure you know how your students get home on the first day of school! I love using these dismissal tags so that I can easily look at the band and see how they get home.
- No Prep Pages: You can use these at various times of the day! Great for downtime or when you’re needing to working individual students or when you need to just have your students show you what they know! They’re great for first grade review!
Click Here To Plan Your First Week of Second Grade!
You can get all these activities and more in one big bundle! You’ll have plenty of activities for the first week of second grade!
Related Posts:
