After multiple back to school seasons, here’s what I’ve realized.
Your first week lesson plans matter. A lot.
That’s why I’ve put together three days of lesson plans for you. Some activities I’ve created (and have available in my store) and other activities I’ve found on the Internet.
First Week Lesson Plans - Day 1
The first week of school is all about getting to know your students. The focus of your first week of lesson plans should be on them – not you.
Introduction/Class Goals: Keep your intro short. Talk about your goals for the year and have them share what they missed most about school or what they liked best being away from school.
What Does it Mean to be Safe?: Read “We Don’t Eat Our Classmates” by Ryan T. Higgins and focus on what an ideal classroom would look like, sound like and feel like. Have your students complete a quick write about what their ideal classroom looks like, sounds like and feels like. Debrief by creating a class Looks Like/Sounds Like/Feels Like chart for “Our Ideal Classroom.” Students will be given 3 sticky notes and will write one word on each to stick on the chart.
Tetrahedrons: Use these as time fillers throughout the first week. If you’re doing a math/reading conference with students, they are working on their tetrahedrons. Students will illustrate one of the get to know you questions on each face of the tetrahedron, fold and put it together, and then display it!
Classroom Library: Do your first book talk (try “New Kid” by Jerry Craft) and give your students a tour of your classroom library. Have them pick out a book.
3 Corners Game: Play this game outside and set up three corners for students to move to. Read out a scenario and students move to that spot depending on their experiences (Never done it, done it, want to do it). If there’s time they read their books.
Number Talks: Introduce your number talk expectations. Start with a dot card number talk to get students thinking about how math is all about patterns.
Growth Mindset in Math: These mindset journals can be the basis of your math program for the first few weeks. Each day Ithey watch a video, engage in a task (today’s is the 5×5 game) and complete a journal entry about growth vs fixed mindsets.
First Week Lesson Plans - Day 2
On Day 2, we dig deeper into rules, routines, and expectations with our first week of school lesson plans.
Writer’s Notebook: Students get their Writer’s Notebook to collect ideas, information and to hold their Quick Writes. Their first entry will be “3 Good Things.” Students will list three positive things in their notebook and choose one to write more about. Focus on the “writing without stopping” expectation. Set a timer and have students write for 3 minutes without stopping. If they can’t think of anything to write, just write “blah blah blah” until they think of something.
Classroom Expectations: Using the book “The Secret Knowledge of Grownups” introduce the importance of rules and routines. Students add their ideas to a variety of different chart papers with prompts set up around the room. Use a Classroom Expectations Chalkboard Splash to get students to brainstorm ideas for community agreements.
House System: Sort students into their houses and do a “Get to Know You” Graffiti activity.
Math is Beautiful: Tons of Triangles – Move your students away from math as a performance and towards appreciating the beauty in math with this triangle activity.
First Week Lesson Plans - Day 3
Our first week plans for Day 3 go a little bit further in getting to know our students.
Don’t Touch My Hair: Jump in with talking about consent. Read the book and discuss ways we feel safe physically and emotionally in the classroom and (if students are comfortable) ways we can feel unsafe physically and emotionally. What do we want for our classroom?
Appointment Game: This game serves as an icebreaker and a quick way to partner students. They fill out the forms and then you call out a time. Students meet with that partner and answer a get-to-know-you question.
Get to Know You Sheet from Teaching Outside the Binary: Use this sheet to ask students for their names, pronouns, and access needs, once you’ve built trust and rapport.
Ideal Bookshelf: Get your students thinking about their reading preferences and interests with this Reading Survey
Hello Letter: Give your students an open-ended prompt and get them to write an introductory letter to you. This is a great way to get a idea of their writing skills and to learn more about them!
Map of My Heart: Spend some time getting students to think about what is important to them with this art activity.
We Can All Make Sense of Math: Get your students realizing that everyone can do math. Try an activity like Crossing Rectangles and have them reflect in their Math Mindset Journals. This is also an opportunity to get your students up on their VNPS (vertical non-permanent surfaces) and working in groups of 3. This is when I observe how well they work in groups and what we’ll need to focus on next week.
Hopefully these first week lesson plans will get you off to a great start!
Read these posts for more ideas for the first week of school:
I’m Lauren, from “From Math to Music” – your go-to person for all things Math and Classroom Community.
Being a middle-school teacher and a mom of 3, I know how hard it is for busy teachers to create resources that allow for deep thinking and build classroom community. That's why I love sharing tips and tricks that you can you use in your middle school classroom right this minute.
