The year 2024 is here, and that means you’re probably looking for a few New Year’s ideas to add to your lesson planning so students can help you say goodbye to 2023! Whether you’re writing New Year’s resolutions with students or simply revisiting your behavior expectations with students who have gotten out of the habit during the winter break, there are plenty of activities you can use to ease back into the school schedule.
The teachers on the Teach Starter team have carved out a little time in our busy resource production schedule to get you New Year’s Eve ready. So adjust those 2024 glasses, grab some party blowers, and let’s get ready to plan ring in the new year in the classroom.
How to Celebrate New Year’s at School
Suffice it to say, we know this is not a holiday you’re going to be spending with your students — New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are typically spent at home with family, and schools won’t re-open until January 2 at the earliest (when US teachers and students go back to school in January is all over the map, depending on where you live!).
Still, an acknowledgment of the New Year when students return from the long vacation can be a great way to re-set your classroom expectations, help students get back into the school groove and make plans for the year that’s to come.
The winter break is much-needed for many students — and teachers — but children’s routines and consistency are often thrown off by a long break. Jumping back into classroom routines can be met with relief as they retain that sense of familiarity. Then again, some students return to the classroom feeling overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of holiday travel, time with family, and disruption to their every day.
The new year is an important time to let students share the things they want to talk about and be as patient and receptive as possible to their needs and feelings. This is a time when social and emotional well-being comes to the forefront. In many ways, it’s not unlike the first few days of school when the curriculum is put on hold as you work to familiarize students with classroom rules and routines. Only this time, it’s revisiting the things they learned the year before.
New Year’s Ideas for Kids to Add to Your Lesson Planning
Keep reading for fresh ideas to celebrate the new year with your students through storytelling, crafts and thoughtful assignments.
Read a New Year’s-Themed Book
Reading a book can be a great way to ease back into the groove of the classroom atmosphere and refocus. Here are some titles you can add to your classroom library:
- One Word for Kids: A Great Way to Have Your Best Year Ever by Jon Gordon – After reading this book, have your class choose a word for the new year!
- The Night Before New Year’s by Natasha Wing – Will the children in this story be able to stay up until midnight? Read to find out! You can ask your students afterward what they did for New Year’s and if they were able to stay awake.
- Shanté Keys and the New Year’s Peas by Gail Piernas-Davenport – Shanté forgot the black-eyed peas for the New Year’s Day feast! She sets out to borrow some so there won’t be bad luck. After reading this story, ask your students if they have any traditional meals they prepare and eat for New Year’s.
- Our Lunar New Year by Yobe Qiu – Not everyone celebrates the New Year on January 1st. In Asian communities, Lunar New Year is celebrated in February. Read this book to expose your students to perhaps new traditions from their own and learn how Chinese, Thai, Korean, Indian and Vietnamese children honor Lunar New Year.
Make a Wish With a Wish Tree
Place small fake branches from a craft store —or even some from your backyard — in a glass vase to bring to school. Once school is back in session, have each of your students write a wish for the new year on a star template (or have them cut out their own). These wishes can be something for themselves, their classmates, friends, family, community or the world.
After all their wishes are written and cut out, attach each star wish to a piece of string and hang them on the wish tree. The wish tree can be displayed in the classroom for some new year inspiration!
Set Goals for the New Year With An Iceberg Template
Setting goals is an important skill to develop early, whether it’s for New Year’s or otherwise! Print our free Iceberg goal-setting template for your students to complete individually. The main goal will form the tip of the iceberg while smaller tasks to complete that goal are written below the waterline. Compile everyone’s together at the end for an easy and inspirational bulletin board display!
New Year’s resolutions are often broken because they aren’t manageable, so be sure to work with students to ensure these goals aren’t too ambitious!
Fill Their Hopes and Wishes Jars
Younger students may find it easier to visualize their dreams for the year ahead with the My Hopes and Wishes Jar Template. These jars would look so cute as a bulletin board display along with the Our Hopes and Wishes Display Banner and would provide students with visual reminders of their new plans for the whole new year. Students could even write their new year’s resolutions in their jars.
Set New Reading Goals for the Year
Use the first week back at school to help your students set some New Year reading goals to inspire them to read more books than they read the prior year or maybe just more challenging books. You may want to share a few sample reading resolutions for the new year.
For example, is this the year your first graders move into reading chapter books? Or perhaps this is the year students will tackle books with more than 100 pages.
Download our Book Wish List template and have them write out the title and author of the stories they want to read before the end of the school year or the end of 2024.
Play New Year’s Charades
Shake the cobwebs out of those “still on winter break mode” brains with a game of New Year charades! This list of suggestions for kids to act out also works as a great brain break for those first few days back from the winter vacation as your students are working back into the groove.
Create a New Year’s Sensory Bin
Use leftover party supplies from your own New Year’s celebration or hit the dollar store for some simple sensory items to add to a plastic bin. You can include paper party hats, confetti or shredded paper, pom poms, pipe cleaners, party blowers and more.
Complete a New Year’s Activity Sheet
What’s better than one New Year’s activity? How about four fun ways to celebrate the end of a year and the beginning of a new one, all packed onto one sheet? With a maze, coloring activity, word search, and more, this free printable is perfect for your fast finishers to complete in the first week back to class.
Assemble a New Year’s Photo Booth
Set up your classroom to celebrate the new year with fun New Year’s Photo Booth Props. The teachers in the Teach Starter office had WAY too much fun testing these out; we guarantee your student will love them too! Create a bulletin board display out of these fun print-outs that can stay up for parents to peek at during winter parent-teacher conferences, or send home a few photos with your classroom newsletter.
Design a New Year’s Party Hat
It’s not a party without a party hat, and this funky New Year’s party hat template can be printed off for students to decorate on the first day back as they slowly readjust to the structure of being in a school building.
Designed like our popular Funky Bunny, Funky Pumpkin, and Funky Reindeer that teachers love around the various holidays, the hat allows students to practice their Zentangle patterns — which requires concentration and focus.
After students decorate, the “hat” template can be folded into a cone, you punch holes in the sides, and you can use string to attach them to your students’ heads. Don’t forget the set of fun glasses to complete the look and to do a quick countdown before wishing one another a happy new year.
Create a New Year’s Pop-Up Card
Another great way to spread the New Year cheer is by asking your students to send a New Year’s Pop-Up Card to a friend or family member. Or why not have them choose a special staff member at the school to surprise with a card? Students can write a message inside about the new year and their special wishes for that staff member.
Design a New Year’s Flipbook
The new year isn’t all about enjoying the fun of celebrations. The act of reflecting is also an important part of social and emotional development, and the new year gives kids a chance to dream about goals and resolutions for the coming year!
Help your kids dive into the meaning behind the message of “Happy New Year” with our New Year’s Flip Book. Combine it with the New Year’s Goals Template to really draw out your students’ hopes and dreams for the new year.
Fill Out a New Year Character Analysis
Want to explore the themes behind the new year in even more depth? Or how about getting your students to empathize with how others might view the new year? Then you will definitely want to take a look at our Character Analysis: New Year’s Activity — it does both.
In this thought-provoking activity booklet, your students will analyze a character from a narrative text and infer how they would celebrate the new year. It’s a fun way for students to get extra practice with this important metacognitive skill.
Setting New Year’s Resolutions With Students
One more popular idea for the New Year in the classroom is to set New Year’s resolutions with your students. The data out there shows that most adults don’t manage to keep our New Year’s resolutions — as much as 91 percent fail — but that’s because we tend to create goals for the year that aren’t very SMART.
If you’re working on new goals — or resolutions — with students, keep in mind that they should be actionable and achievable, and students should have ways to measure their achievement. Saying “I’ll do better in class,” for example, is not measurable. “I will improve my math grade from a C to a B” is.
Resolutions should be student-led, and they’re bound to vary widely depending on students’ needs and interests. But you may want to share some examples to get students started. Head over to our goals and feedback section for some tips from our teacher team on creating SMART goals with students!
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