Back to School 2026 Teaching Resources

Make 2026 your best year yet with back-to-school teacher resources created by primary teachers, for primary teachers. The teachers of Teach Starter have created a curated collection of back-to-school activities, printable worksheets and decorations and more to help you get classroom-ready before the big day.

Explore editable Google Slide or Microsoft PowerPoint templates, printable back to school colouring pages and word searches, inspiring back to school quotes to hang on the walls of your classroom ... and that's just the start of what's in store for your teacher toolkit.

Whether you're teaching in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia or somewhere in between, get the peace of mind that you'll be all set to head back into the classroom with everything you need for a successful school year!

Looking for ideas for getting your students excited about going back to school? Read on for tips from our teacher team, including back-to-school jokes you can share with your class and some back-to-school songs with a positive vibe to set the tone for the school year!

Back-to-School Activities Our Teacher Team Loves

During the first week of a new academic year, connection is more important than content. With that in mind, we've found that the best back-to-school activities have a focus on building relationships in the classroom.

The trick is to develop connectedness by focusing on four main areas:

• Relationships
• Belonging
• Inclusion
• Active participation

Some ideas you might want to add to your list:

1. Tell your students a little bit about you. — What could be more surprising than finding out your teacher has a life outside school? A great way to make a connection with your new students is to share a little bit about yourself. Perhaps you could tell your students about your family, your interests and why you love being a teacher. Make your life easier by using our Google Slides and PowerPoint templates to create and share a slideshow all about you as part of your back-to-school activities.
2. Play icebreaker games. — After they get to know you, make sure classmates get to know one other! These Icebreaker Game Cards include a set of 20 icebreaker games to help your students get to know each other. We particularly love The Spider's Web Icebreaker as a back-to-school activity as it encourages students to reflect on how we are different and how we are connected.
3. Create a classroom contract. — Make sure that you spend time establishing clear expectations with your students. A great way to do that is to create a classroom contract with students involved.
4. Play team-building games. — Playing team-building back-to-school games encourages students to learn the life skills of compromise and collaboration. So, be sure to include a few team-building games the first week of the school year. To get things off to a good start, display our Teamwork Poster in your classroom.

9 Silly Back to School Jokes for Kids

There's no question that telling jokes in your classroom can help build that student-teacher relationship. Are you hoping to incorporate a few kid-friendly (and seriously silly) puns into your planning? Here are a few that have a school theme and are appropriate to share with the younger  students:

1. Why did the maths worksheet look sad? It had a lot of problems.
2. How do bees get to school? They take the buzzzzz.
3. What did the crayon say to the pencil? You're pretty sharp.
4. What did the pencil say to the sharpener? Get to the point!
5. What's a teacher's favourite type of music? Class-ical!
6. What's a vampire's favourite kind of test to take? A blood test!
7. What is a snake’s favourite subject? – Hiss-tory.
8. What did the bus driver say to the frog? Hop on.
9. Why are fish so smart? They spend a lot of time in schools.

7 Back to School Songs to Play in the Classroom

Going back to school comes with mixed emotions for teachers and students. Excitement to see friends and learn new things can be mixed with apprehension — especially for early years students who may have never ridden a school bus or been in a school setting before. You'll want to set a positive tone from day one to help students start the school year off feeling energised and excited.

What better way to motivate your class and pump them up than playing songs perfect for back to school? You can play them quietly as students filter into the classroom in the morning on their first day, use them for a dance party brain break mid-day or add them to a classroom playlist for those times when you need to turn on some jams while kids work in small groups.

Here are a few favourite kid-friendly back-to-school songs from the teachers on the Teach Starter team:

1. Welcome Back to School by Dwayne Reed — It doesn't get more on target than this fun tune from an American educator.
2. Happy by Pharrell — This song about not letting anything ruin your happy mood is perfect for establishing a positive vibe. You can also use it as an example of using repetition as a persuasive device in writing.
3. Can't Stop This Feeling by Justin Timberlake
4. We're All in This Together by the High School Musical cast
5. ABC by The Jackson 5 — Need we say more?
6. School Days by Chuck Berry — This is an oldie that most students will have never heard before, but it's still a goodie!
7. The Educate Song — This is a cover of Bruno Mars' Grenade that's all about education, and it's sung by a group of primary students!

Back to School 2026 — Getting Ready!

We know teachers from Victoria to Tasmania will be heading back into the classroom in 2026, ready to decorate and organise their classrooms, and our teacher team has reviewed every printable and digital resource for starting school to help you prep for the start of the term. Save time on your classroom set-up and first-day-of-school planning with resources that have already been planned out by expert teachers!

Explore this collection to find:

1. Fresh ways to welcome students to a new classroom
2. Ideas to encourage your new students to get to know each other
3. New activities to warm up young minds after a long holiday
4. Resources for setting expectations and reinforcing routines
5. Back-to-school checklists to keep you organised
6. And so much more!

The collection also contains carefully selected teaching resources from across the curriculum that will inspire your teaching for the first days and weeks of the 2026 school year and beyond.

Welcome back to school! It's going to be a wonderful year!