Planning the first week of kindergarten can be daunting since your brand-new group of students will need quite a bit of support! Plus, there is a long list of important things to cover during the first week of school. In this post, I’m going to share some back to school activities that will help you plan the first week of kindergarten and get your year started on the right foot!
10 Back to School Activities for Kindergarten
1. First Day Portraits
There will likely be a wide range of emotions in your classroom on the first day of kindergarten. You can help students reflect on their feelings as they create a self-portrait.
If you plan to create student portfolios for your class, these first day portraits are a great option for the first addition!
2. Find-a-Friend Activity
If you want to build community in your classroom from day one, consider doing some icebreaker activities together as a class.
This Find a Friend activity gets students moving around as they get to know their classmates. They can find someone in the classroom who fits the criteria in each box on the paper. There’s plenty of space in each box for students to write their classmates’ names or draw a picture of them.
3. “Find It” Scavenger Hunts
It’s also helpful for students to get a chance to become more familiar with locations and supplies within the classroom.
You can give students a paper with a variety of objects or locations they need to find. Once they find the object, they can mark it off by coloring in the checkmark. This is a great way for students to see where they can find the supplies they need throughout the day.
4. Pencil Name Craft
Crafts are such a fun way for students to practice many different skills at once! This pencil name craft gives students the chance to practice letter identification, name spelling, and fine motor skills.
The completed pencil crafts look adorable on a back to school bulletin board!
5. School Tools Craft
Another important part of the first week of school is to help students become more familiar with the different school tools they will use throughout the year. It’s not uncommon to have some kindergarten students who have never used liquid school glue before.
This craft gives you a chance to discuss the expectations for using different school tools appropriately. Each tool comes with a simple poem that outlines these expectations in an engaging way.
As students decorate each tool, they can add them to a backpack craft.
6. Transportation Crowns
Crafts can also help your daily routine run more smoothly! Students can prepare their own transportation crowns to wear at the end of the day. This makes it easy to see where students need to go at the end of the day with just a glance. It also makes it easier for students to line up with the correct group of peers, since they’ll all be wearing the same color of transportation crown.
Printing the crowns on different colored cardstock will make it easy to quickly identify which students need to be where.
7. Lacey Walker, Nonstop Talker Read Aloud Activities
One of my favorite books to read with kindergarten students at the beginning of the year is Lacey Walker, Nonstop Talker by Christianne Jones. In this story, an owl named Lacey Walker loses her voice from talking too much.
As she goes silently through her day-to-day activities, she is able to notice things that she was missing when she was talking all of the time. This read aloud can spark conversation about what makes a good listener.
Students can also complete a craftivity to share how they can be a good listener. If students aren’t quite ready to write, they can draw a picture of how they can be a good listener.
It makes a wonderful hallway display!
8. The Recess Queen Read Aloud Activities
Another great read aloud activity for the beginning of the year is The Recess Queen by Alexis O’Neill. In this story, Mean Jean rules the playground until a new student catches everyone off guard. The new student isn’t afraid of Mean Jean and even invites her to play!
This read aloud can be a springboard for discussion about playground expectations. Students can also think about how they can be a pal to their peers on the playground.
9. Songs, Chants, and Call Outs
While we might think of songs, chants, and call outs as classroom management tools, the process of learning them can be fun for students! You can make some time at the beginning of the school year to practice songs, chants, and call outs that will make your classroom run more smoothly all year long.
10. Practicing Classroom Procedures
Finally, consider adding classroom procedure practice to the list of back to school activities to include in your lesson plans. The time you put into practicing classroom routines and procedures during the first week of school will pay dividends all year. You will save so much time during classroom transitions and other routines when your students know exactly what is expected of them.
You can keep a clipboard next to you during the first week of school to remind yourself of the procedures you have taught and which ones you still need to cover.
Printable Back to School Activities
I have put together a resource with everything you need to get the school year started on the right foot! These Back to School Activities are perfect for the first day and week of school as you help your students get ready to learn.
You’ll find everything mentioned in this post, along with additional printables that you can use to help your classroom run more smoothly at the beginning of the year. If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this resource, you can find it in my TPT store.
Save These Back to School Activity Ideas
Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these activities when you’re putting together your back-to-school lesson plans.
