The beginning of the school year is a time full of excitement and anticipation. Teachers are looking for fresh resources and activities to kick-start the year on the right foot. As we approach Back to School 2024, here’s a compiled list of useful resources, fun activities, and educational worksheets to help teachers engage their students from day one.
Resources
1.Teacher’s Pay Teachers (TpT): A well-known marketplace for educational resources, TpT offers a wide variety of Back to School lesson plans, classroom decor sets, and organizational tools made by teachers for teachers.
2.Share My Lesson: This AFT community provides thousands of high-quality teaching resources including syllabi, lesson plans, and complete units. It covers various topics aligned with standards across grades.
3.Edutopia: This comprehensive hub provides articles, videos, and other resources focused on best practices in education and effective teaching strategies that can be particularly helpful in planning for the new school year.
4.Discovery Education: Offering standards-based digital curriculum resources for K-12 classrooms worldwide, this platform has engaging content that can be used to spice up lessons across different subjects.
5.Canva for Education: Canva helps create stunning visuals for the classroom without needing extensive design skills. It offers templates ranging from presentations to infographics that can enliven any back-to-school session.
Activities
1.All About Me Posters: An engaging activity where students fill out posters with information about themselves which can serve as icebreakers and wall decorations.
2.Time Capsule: Have students write letters to their future selves with their expectations and goals for the school year, to be opened at the end of the year.
3.Find Someone Who… Bingo: Create a bingo sheet with different traits or experiences (e.g., “has a pet fish,” “visited another country”). Students will mingle to find classmates who match each description.
Worksheets
1.Goal Setting Worksheets: Provide worksheets where students can set academic and personal goals for the year.
2.Summer Memories Writing Prompt: A reflective worksheet where students write about their summer experiences which can be shared in small groups or with the whole class.
3.Class Rules Brainstorm Sheet: Engage students in creating a set of class rules by using a brainstorm worksheet. This fosters ownership and understanding of classroom expectations.
These resources are only a starting point designed to alleviate some of the stress of planning at the beginning of an academic year and provide inspiration for class activities that build community and student engagement from day one.
