First Day of School — 28 Easy Tips for Teachers to Make the Day Run Smoothly

With back-to-school on the horizon, it’s time to start prepping the first day of school activities to help welcome your new little learners. Knowing where to start and what to prioritise can be challenging … but fear not! We’re here to make it as seamless and stress-free as possible.

The Teach Starter teacher team has been in your shoes many times and has gathered many activities, ideas and tips to make the first day back at school an exciting (and less chaotic) experience for you and your students.

Keep reading to find a hitlist of things to remember before the first day of school and activities to enjoy on the day – from building a time capsule to icebreaker ideas to preparing a welcome note.

What to Do Before the First Day of School

First, let’s talk about the things you will want to prioritise before that first day of school! The list can seem long, but if you write it all out, you’ll be able to see what has to be done and what you would simply like to do if you have time. Figuring out what’s urgent and important helps us to prioritise.

It’s tempting to believe that labelling every non-living thing in your classroom and making things look pretty is a top priority. But consider that decorating your classroom can wait and that other things are more important.

The most important thing to plan for the first day of school is ways to connect with your students, create a classroom community and build relationships.

1. Prepare your classroom displays for birthdays, subjects, doors, etc.
2. Arrange students’ desks in a layout that suits your classroom space and your students’ needs.
3. Tidy the classroom — wipe everything down, organise cupboards, sort your storage, etc.
4. Label where things should go so your new students can help you with sorting and organisation during the school year. Don’t forget to go through the book list and create tray labels for every item. Place them in baskets or just on a table in the corner of the classroom.
5. Write a ‘Meet the Teacher’ letter.
6. Choose an active game, an icebreaker and an ‘All About Me’ activity.
7. Plan a desk activity for the children to work on as they enter the room.
8. Set up a question box in the classroom for students to pop any enquiries about what to expect from the school year, what they will learn, or about each other.
9. Plan a take-home activity.
10. Consider making small welcome gifts for your students. This could be a pack of playing cards, printable bookmarks, a framed motivation quote or a personalised letter to each student.
11. Do a final check and get yourself sorted! Students are likely to arrive with a school bag full of books, stationery and other miscellaneous items such as headphones, tissue boxes, etc. Having a plan for how you will sort all of these items as soon as they walk in is key. Having everything labelled and ready to go frees you up to welcome additional students and do a quick check to see if there are going to be any students who may not cope well with the separation from their parents. It also gives you a chance to help out students who had come straight from before-school care or whose parents are settling in other siblings at that time.

Speaking of labels – teacher Ms. Mitchell popped our printable monkey labels on each of her bins, so students know just where to put their coloured pencils!

 

What to Do on the First Day of School

Well, it happened. The first day of school is officially here! Now what? Here’s what a typical first day will look like!

1. Welcome Everyone on the First Day

Parents and students will arrive at your classroom door at least 15 minutes prior to the start of the school day, especially on the first day! We have found having a poster-sized welcome note displayed outside of the classroom extremely useful. It helps both parents and students, giving them confidence in knowing how the morning is going to run as soon as the classroom door is opened. Make sure that the note explains that parents were most welcome to come in and help settle their children, but give the parents the opportunity to leave once their child is settled at their own desk.

It doesn’t need to be fancy. A handwritten note on butcher’s paper is perfectly fine! You can use bullet points to make it simple and clearly outline what will happen when the door opens for the day.

You can also make it really stand out with these printable pencils (and photo props!) — take a peek at the entrance to Cait Markham’s classroom below!

2. Have Students Choose Name Tags and Desk Plates

As students enter the room, welcome them and help them find their own name tag. This greeting ensures that parents know who the teacher is for their child straight away and the students feel welcomed. Ensuring students have name tags and their names on the desks fills them with confidence and a sense of belonging as well.

 

3. Get Students Started on Their Desk Activity

Name tags collected? Belongings put away? It’s now time for the parents to say their goodbyes and settle their children at their very own desks. Having a fun desk activity prepared for this moment can help with the transition.

Colouring sheets are perfectly fine, or why not create a word search with the names of the children in the class to keep their minds off the daunting fact that their grown-ups are now leaving for the day?

Use our Word Search Generator to easily create a customised word search.

4. Explore the Classroom

For students, one of the most exciting things about the first day of school is getting to know their new classroom! Once they have settled into their desks, give your students the opportunity for a physical movement break with a ready-made Classroom Scavenger Hunt.

This is the perfect activity to acquaint your students with their new classroom. Each slide in the PowerPoint provides a prompt to find something in the classroom. The best part is, the slides are editable so you can customise the presentation to suit your class.

Remember to ask your students to think about where they got things from so they can be returned afterward!

5. Hold a Scavenger Hunt

You may need to tour the school, especially if you have new students in your classroom. This can be done as a whole class using our QR Code School to Library Scavenger Hunt.

This is a fun activity that will allow new students to walk around the school and for older students to reacquaint themselves with the school grounds and where their new classroom is located. In this scavenger hunt, they will end up in the library, so why not organise to have a back-to-school story picked out to read to them while they are there?

6. Weave in Icebreaker Games

We always try incorporating some fun icebreaker games into the day to break up the sorting, general procedures and routine chats. It’s a fantastic opportunity for you to get to know the students and their personalities, identifying those who are leaders and those who prefer to sit back and watch.

Explore dozens of fun icebreakers and getting-to-know-you printables, or head straight for this super versatile one — the interactive friends in the pond icebreaker display wall, writing prompt, and getting-to-know-you activity in one!

Brisbane teacher @mrsloudlife (below) printed out each of the getting to know you questions in the resource, and her teacher’s aide popped them onto a key ring for easy access!

Explore more fun icebreaker activities you can print right now! 

7. Build a Time Capsule

Building a time capsule is a simple yet fun activity to involve the whole class and make memories together. On the first day of school, get students to write a letter to their future selves with goals for the year or to draw pictures of their current hobbies and interests.

Then, pop it all in your class ‘time capsule,’ which could be a recycled shoebox, large jar or container and hide it away. Open the time capsule on the last school day so your class can reflect on their growth and memories.

8. Complete ‘All About Me’ Activities With Your Students (Yes, You Too!)

Completing an all-about-me activity on the first day gives students a chance to get to know one another and a chance for you to start building those relationships! Prep teacher @shaping_little_minds loves to use our Brag Bag activity on the first day with her students. Take a look at how they all turned out!

Print your own brag bag all about me, here.

9. Work on Expectations

If you really want your class to work as a team this school year, then you need to work together to form behaviour expectations for the year.

Using our In This Class… – Expectations Posters, encourage your students to write down what each of these things means to them:

• Excellence
• Respect
• Kindness

Then, use their responses to create a wonderful classroom display!

Your students will love that they’ve already contributed to a whole-class activity. Even better, they will be motivated to demonstrate the class expectations as they will have a clear understanding of what these expectations mean.

Are you a new teacher — or just working to improve your behaviour management? Here’s a tip that Brisbane teacher (and Teach Starter ambassador!) Ash Curmi swears by!

‘[Be] patient with the experience and [know] that a scenario is going to pop up where you’ve got behaviour management, or you’ve got students not listening, or there’s a lesson that you thought you planned beautifully and it doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to … being self-reflective are really important in terms of being the PD for yourself rather than searching for one.’

Remember to reiterate your collaborative rules and expectations throughout the day. For example, explain the packing up routine and lunch procedure just before lunchtime, reinforce bookwork expectations during writing time, and remind students of respectful language as the need arises!

Relationships and trust are important. Get to know your students and settle them. You have the whole year with them, so don’t panic and bombard them with information on the first day.

10. Ask the Students Questions

Show your students you are as interested in them by setting up questions for students written on pieces of butcher’s paper scattered throughout the room (just like the image below by Adventures of a 3rd Grade Teacher). The goal will be for students to place a sticky note on each question by the end of the day.

It does not need to be a forced activity that they have to do within a designated time. They simply need to make sure they answer each question by the end of the day. Look at the answers and discuss them as a class on the second day of school or sometime during that first week.

Image source: The Adventures of a 3rd Grade Teacher

11. Fill Out ‘Summer Snapshot’ Reflections

Students often love to share what they’ve done over the summer, and this makes an excellent writing prompt for the first day or even sometime during the first week of school.

This fun Instagram-inspired Summer Snapshots template can be used alongside the writing activity. It provides a number of drawing prompts, plus your new students can create some of their own original hashtags to share with the class.

12. Print a ‘Getting to Know You T-Shirt’

Of course, the first few days are not all about learning what your students like at school. You can’t have first-day activities without getting to know your students’ interests outside of school, too!

This awesome Getting to Know You T-Shirt activity is just the creative lesson you need to get your students to share their interests. Have the class introduce themselves to each other by sharing their T-shirts. They may find some new friends who share common interests that will set them up for the year to come.

13. Complete a ‘Would You Rather?’ Writing Task

Ahhh; a good old fashioned writing task! There’s nothing like asking a student’s opinion to get them writing. You can do just that with these fun Would You Rather…? Question Cards!

Give your students a card to prompt them to write an opinion piece or a story! This will help you assess their handwriting, spelling and writing skills too! It’s a win-win!

14. Choose a Children’s Book

Having a good children’s book up your sleeve for the first day of school is essential. Reading a good book to your class on the first day of school is a bit like sharing a pot of tea — it brings everyone together.

Explore a booklist of 55 teacher favourites from the Teach Starter team to help you choose the right one. You may not be able to read them all, but the list will also give you new ideas for your classroom reading corner.

15. Play an Active Game

After a long active holiday, it’s going to be a challenge for students to sit down for long periods of time. Need some new active game ideas? Our Brain Break Active Game Resource Pack has heaps!

16. Create a Group Art Project

The first day of school can be exhausting for you and the students. Leaving some time in the afternoon for some arts and crafts is a nice way to ease into the school year and a chance to collaborate on something. The project could be as simple as a handprint mural or a collage with crafty materials.

Grab a large piece of thick card or a canvas to create a class artwork, encouraging every student to contribute. Once finished, get everyone to write their names on the artwork and hang up in the classroom to create a community feel.

17. Assign a Take-Home Activity

Be smart and choose an activity that is easy for your students to complete independently and without much teacher instruction. With early years in mind, we have created this fun Starting School Chatterbox.

This fun template is ideal to use during the first week of school and encourages students to:

• Learn how to spell their teacher’s name
• Get their school uniform ready the night before school
• Pack their bag the night before school
• Learn the names of two people in their new class
• Read to an adult at home
• Introduce themselves to a classmate
• Draw a map of their classroom
• Show an adult how to hold their pencil