Starting a New School Year!

In just a few short days it will be back to school.  We start back on Wednesday and the students will start back on Thursday.  This is our first year (since I have been teaching) that our first day with the students is a FULL day.  That's right folks I will have my little 5 year olds from 7:55 - 2:40.  I think it will be a long day for all of us.

In our school the kindergarten students are not assigned a teacher until we have assessed them all.  For the first few days of the school year we keep all the kindergarten students together.  Once assessed we split the students into two classes.  It works well, but it makes the first few days exhausting!

Now we are just trying to make sure we have enough planned for the first day.  Here is what my teaching partner and I are thinking of doing that day (in no particular order):


  • Read "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Penn
  • Make Chester the raccoon puppets from paper bags (this includes coloring, cutting, and gluing so we will probably just do a step at a time throughout the day)
  • Read "Miss Bindergarten gets ready for Kindergarten" by Joesph Slate and Ashley Wolff
  • Discuss rules & procedures for being at the carpet
  • Discuss rules & procedures for hallways and bathroom
  • School Tour
  • Play a "getting to know you" game in the gym
  • Recess
  • Maybe watch "Letter Factory" by Leap Frog
  • We might also have a specialist that day like library
How about you?  What do you do on the first day of school?  I would love to have some ideas!

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