Back to School Bash Tips and Freebies!

Have you started back to school yet? Here in WI today is the first day of school for most kiddos. I am missing the classroom but loving my time home with Madelynn.  We even did some fun apple activities yesterday because that’s just how things go when you’re momma is a teacher. 😉

For those of you in full back to school mode my friends at The Elementary Entourage and I wanted to share our favorite back to school lessons, tips, ideas, and freebies to get your year off to a great start.

My first tip is really simple but such a sanity saver for me.  The first few weeks of kindergarten are crazy.  Many kids have never been to school and don’t really know how to function in a group setting. They are used to doing what they want, when they want to.  To help keep students from getting up every 5 seconds to ask me a question or tell me they are done, I always have a stack of books on each table for students to look at.  I try to include a mixture of familiar picture books, emergent readers, and alphabet book sets at the beginning to spark students interest and get them used to our “little” books.

The next thing I always have on hand during the first few weeks are name writing pages.  I use this  Handwriting Practice website to quickly print pages for each of my students.  I like that I can differentiate the pages for students by including first/last names, tracing on each line, dots or letter outlines, and more.  This website makes it so quick and easy to print new pages as needed.  Because I differentiate these pages and print new ones often, I put them in clear pockets for students to use with dry erase markers.  I have students keep them in their seat pockets so they can pull them out anytime they have a free minute.

And last, I think it is SUPER important to snap a first day pic of each kid. But if I don’t have it in my plans I always forget to do it… There may have been a year or 2 that I had to take these pictures on the second day of school because I didn’t plan ahead.  Oops! One thing that helps is having a little sign printed ahead of time.

I made a few quick options for pre-k through fifth grade for you that you can print and use today, did I mention they’re FREE.  Happy Back to School, check that off your to do list. 😉