40 Teacher-Inspired Ideas for the First Day of School Activities
The first day of school can be an exciting time for teachers and students, but it can be an anxious time, too. What can you do to make sure your students (and you!) feel at home in the classroom on that first day?
Here are some teacher-inspired first-day-of-school activities for primary school children that teachers can use in their classrooms this back-to-school season.
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Do you wonder what to do with your students on the first day of school? The first day of elementary school is an exciting and nerve-wracking time for both students and parents. It marks the beginning of a new adventure as children explore new ideas, make new friends, and learn to navigate their ever-growing independence.
No matter how prepared a student or teacher may feel, it’s normal to have some butterflies in your stomach on the big day. With the right attitude and preparation, however, the first day of any grade in elementary school can be a wonderful experience that sets the tone for a successful year full of growth and exploration.
How can teachers help students transition from a summer at home to school on the first day of a new year? Check out these fun first-day-of-school activities to help students get to know one another and make it the best first day! You can use these fun activities in your lesson plans during the first week of school!
40 First Day of School Activities
Here are 40 surefire tips for making your first day back to school successful! Scroll to the comments for even more ideas!
Read First Day Jitters by Julie Danneburg
First Day Jitters is a great book to break the ice with your students. There are several activities for the first-day jitters book.
To make it extra special, serve Jitter Juice! Then, have students write YOU a letter with ideas on why you shouldn’t be nervous. It’ll get a few kids thinking about their jitters, and maybe they can help each other, too!
This is an excellent way for students to reflect on their feelings about the first school day and make meaningful connections with the text.
Do a classroom or school tour
Show your kiddos where all the classroom supplies are and help them know what areas are for them and for you only. Are students new to the school?
Take them around the whole school and show them where the bathrooms, the gym, the cafeteria, etc. Teach them the computer lab rules and lunchtime procedures. This is a great opportunity for new students to get to know their new school.
If your social studies standards include learning about maps, this is also a good time to lay a foundation for classroom and school maps.
Create a Scavenger Hunt
Take it a step further and create a scavenger hunt for students. Creating a scavenger hunt as a first day of school activity is an excellent way to engage students and break the ice on day one.
Create questions or tasks related to the classroom, school, or surrounding area, and have students work independently or in teams to find the answers.
Make a picture keepsake
Don’t forget this one! Take a picture of each student on their first day back to school, then take one on the last day of school. Turn it into a keepsake at the end of the year.
Better yet, let students draw a self-portrait on the first day and then again on the last day. Compare! They might have changed, and their drawing skills will surely have, too!
One-on-one time
One key first-day-of-school activity that I always make a point of doing is spending a few minutes one-on-one with each student. Get to know them, introduce yourself, giggle, and encourage them. Making that personal connection on the first day is so important! You may get teacher inspiration and insights into your students that you can use all year!
As you meet with each student, take along a clipboard or sticky notes. Jot down a few memorable notes about the student. At the end of the day, gather these notes together. Reflect on your class as a whole. What makes each student unique? How can they be an integral part of your class?
Take it a step further and turn these notes into words of encouragement. Write on students’ desks and leave a note about what you love about each student.
Back to School Craft
Are you ready for some downtime at the end of the first day?
You might need some, too! This is one of my favorite activities for the first day of school.
It allows the kids to wind down and still be productive. In this Back-to-School Bus Craftivity Flap Book students tell about themselves, review the rules, reflect on their day, and think about being a good classmate.
It makes a fun keepsake, too. Parents will thank you!
Teacher Q&A
Have fun with this one in a couple of different ways. Sit in a circle with your students and let them ask you questions like: What’s your favorite food? Color? Animal? Candy? Etc.
Or, make a quiz and see if they can guess the answers to these questions.
It’s a great way for your students to know more about you, a very important person in their day.
Start Your Community Circle
This is also a great opportunity to establish a community circle routine. Using a community circle in the classroom is an effective way to foster empathy and collaboration among students. A community circle creates a safe, non-threatening space for students to discuss their ideas and feelings with each other.
Community circles allow for a greater understanding and appreciation of different perspectives, which can help reduce conflict in the classroom. Creating an environment where all students are respected makes learning more meaningful and engaging.
Community circles also provide opportunities for teachers to guide conversations by introducing topics and raising questions that will help strengthen relationships. In this way, students are encouraged to think critically and find creative solutions to problems together.
Need some community-building question ideas? I’ve got 67 for you!
Make a classroom cheer
Who doesn’t love a good team cheer? Sit down with your students and brainstorm a catchy classroom cheer you can use throughout the year. This is a great team-building activity!
Discuss the Student’s and Teacher’s Roles in the Classroom
Do you know what your students expect out of the year? Do they? Have them do an activity with them to list their own personal goals for the school year.
This blog post has some great anchor charts that show how students define good friends, their role as students, a teacher’s role, and their parent’s role. It’s a great starting point for a discussion about classroom expectations.
Build community with a Class Mission Statement
Make a mission statement or class pledge/promise, and recite this each morning. Making a class mission statement aligns well with student goal-setting.
Once students define who they are as a community, they can set goals that align with the mission statement.
Create Name Labels or Name Tags
Make name cards for desks, lockers, or cubbies. Let students write their own names and decorate a border around them. Then, laminate, and voila!
Each desk or cubbie has a personal touch. At the end of the year, you could even add name tags to students’ portfolios.
Beach Ball Ice Breaker
Take a permanent marker and write questions on a beach ball. Sit in a circle with your students and toss the beach ball to each other. Each time students catch the ball, they answer any of the questions visible, then toss it to someone else.
It’s a fun way for students to get to know each other and you!
Survey Students
Create a blank bar graph on chart paper, or better yet, create a horizontal and vertical bar graph. Use it throughout the day and week to survey students about various favorite things. Give each student a sticky note. As a question, have groups of students place their sticky notes in the correct columns.
Your students will love the interactiveness of sticky notes and placing them on chart paper! This is a cheat sheet for getting to know your students better, AND you can weave in some math skill work, too! Teachers will learn about important ideas about their students, too!
When I was a kid, I loved filling out little surveys that asked me all about myself! Besides the standard questions about their hobbies, siblings, or summers, don’t forget to ask some silly questions to make it extra fun!
Rules and Procedures and Classroom Routines
While you’re busy making this the most fun first day ever for your students, don’t forget the rules and classroom procedures.
Don’t skip this.
It is an essential part of ensuring your school year runs smoothly. Knowing what is expected of them is of great benefit to your students—and let’s be honest with you as well!
Party! Party! Party!
How exciting is the first day of school? Exciting enough for a welcome-back party!
No, really! Why wait until the end of the year?
Serve baked goods, orange or apple juice (or jitter juice! See #1), bananas, and grapes.
Include circle time to share summer stories and dance those jitters away!
Eat lunch with your students
Consider eating lunch with your students. Especially on the first day, showing your kids that your class is “family.”
Read aloud – a lot!
Reading out loud to your students often instills a lifelong love of reading in their hearts.
Choose quality books that take their nervousness away, make them laugh, or build their self-esteem and team spirit.
Don’t be afraid of classics with harder-to-understand language. Kids can fill in the gaps; it builds their vocabulary, and when the storyline is riveting, they will get it.
The first day back at school is a great time to relax and read to your students.
Create a welcome swag-bag
You love free gifts. I love free gifts. I don’t think many people wouldn’t love a free gift. Do you want to know who loves them the most? Your students!
Create a little welcome bag with treats and gifts for each student. Give it to them right after greeting them at the door!
Or, give each student a gift at the end of the day to congratulate them on a great first day. If your classroom has a theme, you might want to consider a gift that matches that theme!
Greet Students at the Door
Adults love to feel important and to know that they are seen. So do kids! Your students want to know they aren’t invisible to you.
So, first things first: Greet your students at the door. Meet them at their eye level and let them know you are excited to be their teacher. Introduce yourself, learn their name, and make this a positive start of their day.
Why not do this every day for the remainder of the school year?
Create a Puzzle
Kids love puzzles! It’s a great community-building activity that encourages creativity and cooperation.
I love using this Community Building Puzzle on the first day of school. I leave a puzzle piece on each student’s desk first thing in the morning. As students enter, they find a seat, write their name on their puzzle pieces, and decorate it.
Create your own giant puzzle pieces, or save time and sanity and get this one.
Students can color the whole piece or decorate the borders. They can write their name or list their favorite things. The possibilities are endless!
After they finish decorating, you can sit in circle time or have students sit at their desks. Use the pieces to introduce yourselves to each other and/or glue all of the pieces together and post it to a bulletin board labeled “A Perfect Fit…For a Perfect Year!”
Find Someone Who . . .
It’s a classic icebreaker game! Make a list of characteristics/experiences your students might have in common.
Think of “Find someone who has the same color hair as you,” or “Find someone who has the same kind of pet.”
Don’t overthink it, but make it fun.
Students walk around the room, list in hand, and find other students who will have something in common with them. They write the name of the person they found next to the question.
It’s easy, it’s fun, and it’s a great community-building activity.
Read The Kissing Hand Book
You cannot miss this one if you teach a lower elementary class, such as Kindergarten or First Grader!
For example, have your students trace their hands (they might need you to do that!) and cut it out. Glue a heart in the palm of the paper hand and fold the fingers down (but don’t glue the fingers!).
Teach your students “I love you” in sign language & give them a note with a chocolate kiss at the end of the day.
Ensure your kids take this “kissing hand” back home that same day to show their loved ones.
Ask Parents to Get Involved
We often ask students to write about themselves, but what about asking the parents to write something about their children?
You will receive insight into your children’s personalities that will help individualize your attention, care, and understanding of each student.
Use GoNoodle for Brain Breaks
Hey, teacher! (Hey, what?) Are you ready? (For what?) To pop! (Pop what?) Pop See Ko! I love GoNoodle. Chances are, your students love it, too. If not, they will!
It is the silliest, goofiest way to keep your students active and giggling. Just pull up YouTube, get them out of their chairs, and shake off the jitters (and sugar… if you had a welcome back party or allowed them to eat the candy you just put in that welcome swag bag above).
Social Contract
This activity is fun for upper elementary or middle schoolers and helps establish classroom management expectations.
Create four posters with one question on each. The questions should be something like:
- How do I want to be treated by the teacher?
- How do I want to be treated by other students?
- How do I treat the teacher?
- How do we solve conflicts?
Have each student write answers to each question on a sticky note and place the notes on the poster. Once everyone has placed a sticky note on each poster, break the classroom into four groups. One group for each poster. Each group will then sort the sticky notes into commonality. The group will agree on and write the best answers (multiple) on the poster.
Display the four posters in a prominent place and tell your students that this is the Social Contract of the class. It’s a great way to build community and set boundaries. Your students will love it because they helped set the rules. It will give a sense of ownership and understanding of others, too.
Getting to Know You Small Group Craftivity
Break your students into small groups for a fun craftivity that will help them build community and treat others with kindness.
Each group has paper shapes that each student can cut out and decorate. On each shape, write sentences for the students to complete.
Start the sentences with things like “I feel appreciated when…” or “I feel ___ when ___”. You can find a fun example already prepared for you here.
When I grow Up
What are your students’ dreams? What are their hopes beyond the first or last day of school? Do they want to be doctors, astronauts, or Lego designers?
Ask them!
You can utilize a “When I grow up, I want to be ___” or “When I grow up, I want to ___” in various ways.
Make it part of a giant puzzle (see # 2) or an icebreaker (see #3).
You can use it as a calm-down activity in circle time or at their desks. Ask each student and listen to their answers. Their dreams might surprise you!
Read The Name Jar
Students love this book and will talk about it throughout the year. You can make a fun assignment from this, too. Have your students go home and find out how they got their names. It’s a fun, investigative activity they can do with their families.
After they find out how they got their name, have them write about it. It makes an excellent first writing assignment for the year.
They’ll learn and appreciate their name, plus the names of their classmates—another tremendous community-building activity.
Who Goes Where?
This one is really important and cannot be skipped. Before school begins, ensure parents know to show up with their kids on the first day of school. They can help with what we call the “who’s going where?” sheet.
It helps you know which students will be picked up by their parents, which students ride the school bus, and which students stay for after-school care (and who will pick them up later).
Each student has their own card. For students with parents picking them up right away, take their picture with the parent. For bus riders, take their picture with a bus sign and the student. For after-school care, take a picture of the student, the parent who will pick them up, and the school mascot.
Later, all the pictures are added to cards, laminated, and attached to a binder ring to hang by the door. If students have different pickup days, you can write that on the back of the card as needed.
This is a great help in remembering who belongs to whom and keeps your students safe!
Two Truths and a Lie
This is a fun icebreaker game to play. Have each student think of three “facts” about themselves they want to share with the class. Two of these “facts” must be true, and one must be a lie.
The rest of the class has to guess which one is the lie. Prepare for some off-the-wall answers and lots of laughter. This is also a great way to learn fun facts about your students!
What I Really Want to Learn
Make a poster with the words “What I really want to learn” at the top. Have each student write something on it that they would love to learn during the school year.
It’s a great insight into their hobbies and interests. Use the ideas from the list as random activities and lessons throughout the year.
Summer Postcards
Before school starts, get a list of your students as soon as possible. Over the summer, send each student postcards.
Tell them how excited you are to meet them on the first day of school. Write them silly things about what you’re doing over the summer.
Make it adventurous or funny. Above all, make them feel valued before they even meet you.
Just Like Me
This is a fun icebreaker to play. Have the entire class sit in a large circle or oval. One student stands and tells the class something that they did over the summer (or over the weekend, if you play this at different times during the year) like “I flew on an airplane,” or “I went to the beach.”
If any other student (or you!) did the same thing, they get to stand up and enthusiastically say “Just like me!” Then, the next student stands and says something. The game continues until every student has a chance to tell something they did.
Human Bingo – Find Someone Who Activity
Another great way to change up the get-to-know-you icebreaker. Make bingo boards with activity or characteristic squares. Each square should say something like “Flew on an airplane,” “plays the piano,” “plays soccer,” etc.
This activity is also called Find Someone Who.
Give each student a bingo card. They go around the room to find other students that fit the square’s description. When they find someone, they write their name over the square.
The first student to fill the whole board wins a prize like a homework pass or something similar.
Kindness Quilt
This is a craft your students will treasure throughout the year. Give each student a square of fabric they can decorate. Have them write kind messages and color their squares.
When they finish, take the squares and have them sewn together into a quilt. Hang the quilt up in the room as a kindness reminder. Your students will love that they helped create something beautiful for the class.
Self Portrait
On the first day of school, have your students draw self-portraits. Make it fun or silly with googly eyes or yarn for hair.
However, if they want to draw themselves, let them. Hang them up in the hallway as part of a large poster that introduces them as your students.
Dear Me Letter
Ask your students to write a letter to themselves. Have them write about what they are looking forward to for the year, or what they might be nervous about, or how they feel.
Keep the letters and return them to the students on the last day of the year. They’ll be amazed at how much their handwriting improved and how much they’ve grown during the year.
Do a STEM Challenge
Kickstart your science lessons with engaging team-building activities and STEM challenges right from day one of the new school year.
These STEM challenges foster cooperative learning and ignite curiosity and critical thinking, setting the stage for an exciting and immersive learning experience for your new class.
Encourage your Grade Level Team
Be a team encourager! Put together a small gift for everyone on your teaching team (or the whole school staff). Include a note wishing them the greatest year ever.
Create a Small Booklet
Teach students to create a small booklet from a piece of paper. Have them jot down things they want to remember from the first day of school.
Don’t forget you on the first day of class!
This one’s for you. If you haven’t already done so, go to your classroom well before school starts, organize your desk, pour yourself that coffee, and put all that dark chocolate in your drawer.
This blog post about my favorite Teacher School Supplies will give you a few more ideas to add to your teacher area!
Walk through the school to get a feel for the school climate and meet the people you will be working with this year.
Smile
Last but not least, Smile! Be a positive you. Be approachable, laugh, and enjoy yourself!
EVEN More Back-to-School Ideas and Activities
Are you looking for more back-to-school ideas? Here are a few more:
- 9 Ways to Start the Year Off Right
- Five Things to Keep in Mind on the First Day of School
- Cooperative Learning Activities for the First Day of School
- 3 Tips to Get Ready for Back to School
- Teacher School Supplies You Can’t Live Without
- 80 Sponge Activities: A Teacher’s Guide to Making Every Minute Count
- Virtual Icebreakers for Distance Learning
- Create a School Time Capsule
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My favorite first day activity is to do a 5 senses activity using Pop rocks. I also love getting that first day hug or high five.
The first day of school, I have the students complete a who am I activity. We share. I then give a tour of the classroom.
Finally we go over the class routines, rules, and expectations.
I teach Middle School so I always do a ice breaker on the first day. It is a bingo type of set up where the students have to find someone who fits the square description and have them sign it. The first student to fill the whole board wins a free homework pass.
On the first day of school, I help make students feel at ease, set up classroom routines/expectations, and teach them how to use our resources the correct way. I find that establishing this first helps them know what to do and how to do it so the rest of the year runs smooth in no time!
As a Kindergarten teacher for the last few years I always read a Pete the Cat book and took a tour of the school while looking for Pete. This was instrumental because it’s there first year in the “big” school so going together during a fun activity helped them feel less intimidated. It also allowed them to learn a little about the school. However, I am moving to Second Grade and don’t know what I am doing yet : /
I always do a hunt and search around the classroom to help explain what is in the classroom and its purpose. I also take a picture of each student on the first day and send it home that week at Back to School night so that every parent has a keepsake of their child’s first day of first grade.
One thing I like to do on the first day of school is read Dr. Seuss Oh! The Places You’ll Go. We talk about the “places” they will go in third grade and then they write their own story following the structure of the story.
I like to do a little get to know you activity called truths and fibs. I have several statements about myself pre-written and displayed on the data projector screen. The students have to guess if it is a truth or a fib. I try to pick things they wouldn’t know unless they knew me; things most are really surprised to learn are truths. It’s a hoot! Afterwards, they do the same on their own form, writing statements about themselves. We play hands up, pair up over the next few days so students can better get to know each other.
The first day is when we try to calm the nerves of the new, introduce each other, make selfies for lockers and name tags for desks. I also start to read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. I also begin to establish routines the very first day, we take a tour of the classroom and start to learn what is what in the classroom.
Read aloud! I love, love, love to read to my students. I want them to love reading as much as I do!! I try to find books that will hook them, so I read a wide variety of genres so that everyone can find what interests them. This past year I had a student who hated reading and always had. I finally found books that he loved!! I bought everyone I could find. (Interactive history books)! Who would have thought??!!
One thing I always do on the first day of school is build our classroom community by doing team building activities, read alouds, and reflections!
On the first day of school, I always have my students write a letter to themselves that they receive on the last day of school.
I am a high school special education teacher. After we introduce ourselves and do a small introduction activity, I have the group make classroom rules all together. I do this so I am not just telling them rules and so we can make sure everyone has a comfortable learning environment. I make a list on a poster and post it on the wall. Depending on the class, I follow up with a sheet that helps me understand their comfort level. We go through a list of questions as a group and they circle “comfort zone”, “challenge zone”, or “panic zone”. I allow students to share if they want but they do not have to. I do this and collect them later to see how each student learns best. An example statement may be reading in front of the class.
I ask my students what kind of a teacher they expect me to be before we discuss classroom rules on the first day. Then, they write their name on a piece of puzzle and decorate it as their own before we combine them to build a big class puzzle.
We go over the rules & the each student fills out an All About Me sheet which they share.
This will be my first day of school and I would like to develop an anchor chart with my students about what will help them succeed this year. I really appreciate all the ideas shared in these comments as it has provided excellent fodder for my own first day!
On the first day of school I always spend time getting to know my students and go over procedures with them. We have share time and I take them on a tour around the school. I introduced them to the centers and each classrooms in the school.
One thing I always do is pray for my students. Before the day starts, I sit at my desk and specifically say each students name and pray that I will be able to reach them and to keep them and their families safe.
I need to make time for this Monday morning. Thanks for reminding me of what’s really important!
This is only my second year teaching third grade, but one thing we did last year on the first day was first day selfies, read First Day Jitters, took a tour of the school, and did some team building activities! Ready for this year!
I always love to do first day pictures. It is really great to look back on these when doing last day pictures.
I always start with asking my firsties how they felt the night before school. After a discussion of their feelings, I read the book, The Night Before First Grade. We discuss what happened in the book, and then we make a craftivity.
I always put on my bright red lipstick and smile until my cheeks hurt.
I always have the kids write a letter to themselves. They have to talk about what they are looking forward to, nervous about and how they are feeling so far. We usually write them after lunch on day 1.
I save the letters and put them on their desks on the last day of school. They love to see how “bad” their handwriting and sentences were and it’s great to see how proud they are of their growth.
One thing I always do in my Kindergarten class on the first day of school, is share the book, “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”. Kids love that book and so do I. I like the fact that it is something familiar to most of them and they feel more comfortable with something they are familiar with. We sing the abc song forward and backwards. The kids are usually very impressed that I can sing the abc song backwards without looking. It builds anticipation to be able to do this, too, and it challenges the ones that don’t know their alphabet that well to work harder to learn it…not only forwards, but backwards. We talk about why we do need to learn the alphabet and I sing another alphabet song I know that stresses the reason we learn the alphabet is so that we can learn to READ.
On the first day of school I always play a funny get to know you game where everybody has a piece of sticky tape on there nose and they try to take other people’s tape by only touching noses. The last one with all the tape stick to their nose wins. It’s always a hilarious sight!
I love doing the all about me bag. The kiddos have so much fun with it!
I always read The Giving Tree.
I always try to do an activity that will help me get to know my students a little more without giving them the anxiety of speaking in front of their peers. I’ve done group shares, posters for the classroom, little books.. things like that. Taking notes on my students’ interests helps me make connections through the year.
I set aside time for the students to have a Q & A with me so they can get to know me better. Most students have lots of questions once I tell them that I use to be a Deputy Sheriff before I became a teacher.
We have some editable labels we’d love for you to feature if you’re doing a post update for 2018! We typically use them for organization, but love the idea of using them for names too.
I taught 6-8 Math Resource this past year and gave each grade level a color and used the labels for workbook bins, class schedules and turn-in drawers to help students remember where to look for their grade level.
Great post on how to make your first day back to school success, I would definitely like to read on similar topics
Great ideas! I like the idea of crafting back-to-school decors to add a fun yet academic vibes to the classroom. Do you have any tips for making great event graphics as designs?
These activities can create an exciting and positive atmosphere on the first day of school, and help students feel comfortable and excited to start the new school year. Well written article really liked it
It was really nice to see your advice about eating lunch with the kids. I do think it is important for teachers to show their students that they are a family. My daughter for one would appreciate it if her teacher was like this. She’s in constant need of a role model. At home it’s me. Hopefully, at school, it’s her teacher.