Back to School Ideas

Since I am unable to get into a classroom to start setting things up, I have decided to spend some time each day coming up with some engaging, educational ideas for the first few days of the new school year. I will share a few with you today (and I hope you will do the same in the comments section). I wish I could remember exactly where I found these ideas, but I am pretty sure not one of them was my original idea. So, THANK YOU to the creative minds that got me started :)

*Early on during the first day, I play the Eraser Game (Instructions here: Eraser Game ). It is a fun, hands-on way for the students to understand the importance of having rules and knowing the rules/expectations ahead of time. We then have a great class discussion about what would happen in the classroom if they did not know my rules/expectations/procedures. This is a great segue into modeling of some of the procedures.

*For Social Studies, I developed a scavenger hunt that matched our text book. This was a great way for me to assess my students' map skills and other prior knowledge of our social studies concepts. Students were required to completed a set of  "challenges" such as locating a particular place on a map within the book using latitude/longitude, solving riddles about states, etc. We have a new text book this year, so I will be working on the newest scavenger hunt this week. I have also used scavenger hunts to allow students to "peek" through their other textbooks, but overall, I think the Social Studies hunt is the most authentic because they are, in a sense, being explorers! I will post my finished work very soon!


On a different note, I had the chance to attend a potluck that was held by my new principal and assistant principal today. Several of the teachers who are moving to our brand-new school were able to attend. I have met many throughout my time in the school system, and I am VERY excited to be working with such an awesome group of educators. As of noon today, we are still on track to get to move into the building sometime after August 25th, and our start date is still slated for September 1st. Hopefully none of that will change :)