Getting My First Week Together

Here's another post from my old blog:

OK...so I'm a nerd. I love school and I cannot wait to get back. The kids are so adorable those first few weeks, during their "Honeymoon" phase. You know, when they're still too scared to try any nonsense.

I've been busy getting my lessons together for the first few weeks. Here's some stuff I'm doing. Of course I have to read the No David Books by David Shannon. The kids love them--they're simple and funny, and make a great springboard for the big "classroom rules" discussion.

One of the things we do is make David puppets. They are very easy to make (essential for any week 1 art projects!) They are copied on cardstock and glued to a tongue depressor. The kids color them in. It's a good time to talk about coloring expectations (Yes...you have to teach them how to color!) Because his face is a big wide space, it allows them to practice coloring in "all the way," and not just scribbling. They also have to cut out his face a nose, which is good, simple cutting practice and lets you see quickly who has scissors skills and who does not. When we're done, we use the masks to roleplay different things kids do in school (sharing, hitting, making messes, raising your hand, etc.) and we decide if those are acceptable behaviors or not. (The kids love to roleplay the bad behaviors). Then we brainstorm our class rules together and I write them on a chart pad as an early shared writing experience. (Of course--I pare the rules down to a few simple ones for our final set of rules.) I made the mask template into a PDF file you can download if you want.

Download No_david

Another activity I do revolves around the song and book The Wheels on the Bus. It's a simple song that most of the children already know, and it's just plain fun to sing. I have the song and book by Raffi, which I love. (You can download the song on I-Tunes). Again--this can be a great springboard for discussing dismissal procedures and bus/crosswalk safety.

For an art activity, we make construction paper busses. I give the children half a sheet of yellow constructuion paper (so 8 1/2" by 5 1/2"). I show them how to cut a square out form the corner. I give them 3 pre-cut white rectangles for windows and have them draw 3 friends.I pre-draw the circles on black construction paper with a white crayon) and have them cut them out (again--good cutting practice). Of course, you have to attach them with brads so the wheels actually go 'round and 'round. I pre-cut the red octagon and show them how to add the details with crayons. (Of course, that is my sample--look below for a kid version!)

We also make a predictable chart featuring the words is and on. (Joey is on the bus. Mary is on the bus.) I then have them write three friends' names on a worksheet. Here's one from last year. (I see now that my bus is a little different. Oh well!) It makes a really cute beginning of the year bulletin board!

One more activity I do is based around the book The Colors of Us by Karen Katz. I absolutely adore this book...it celebrates the different skin colors we all have! Then we read this poem:

Wouldn't it be terrible? Wouldn't it be sad?
If just one single color was the color that we had?
If everything was purple? Or red? Or blue? Or green?
If yellow, pink, or orange was all that could be seen?
Can you just imagine how dull world would be
If just one single color was all we got to see?

Then the kids get to make their own crayon self-portraits. I got this activity from KinderArt: Crayon Box Activity . Here's my example. I let the kids use hand mirrors to really examine the details. We talk about eye color, hair color, whether or not they have freckles, etc. I also let them use multi-cultural crayons to color their skin. (There's nothing worse than only having brown, black or peach to choose from when trying to match your skin color!) When you're all done, it makes an adorable bulletin board or class book! Here's a template for the crayons--

Download Crayon_templates

Here's another cute poem to tie in about crayons and sharing:

I had a box of crayons,
All shiny, straight and new.
I lent a friend one crayon,
And--oops--it broke in two!

My friend said she was sorry,
But I said "I don't care,
'cause now we both can color
with one crayon--we can share!"

Comments

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I love this blog! This is my first year teaching and I was hoping for some beginning of the year ideas...I student taught 4th grade and I am teaching Kinder! AHHH so I know the first few weeks are going over procedures...do you have any suggestion on the order in which to teach or which ones to spend more time on based your experience.

Posted by: Rachel | 07/28/2010 at 06:30 PM

Thank you for posting these amazing activities for the first week of school I'm definitely going to use the NO, David pattern. I can't wait to share this blog with my k team. You are super creative... WOW!

Thanks!
Paula

Posted by: Paula | 08/09/2010 at 10:40 PM