What Should You Teach during the First Week of School?
The lessons you teach at the beginning of the year are crucial for laying the foundation and setting the tone for the rest of the school year.
During the first week, your schedule should be a mix of teaching procedures and expectations as well as building a strong classroom community.
Download our FREE First Week of School Schedule to learn how to balance teaching procedures and building community with games and STEM at the beginning of the year! If you are wanting to get ahead this school year we also have everything you need to teach during your first week of school all in one resource.
Your first week of school schedule should be flexible. It is best to over plan and move things around as needed. We recommend planning with sticky notes so that you can easily rearrange your schedule. You can grab our sticky note planning template by signing up for our FREE Best First Week Ever e-mail course.
The most important thing you will teach your first week of school are your classroom and school-wide procedures. Teaching procedures is an essential part of the beginning of the school year. If the procedures are not properly taught, practiced, and reinforced a lot of instructional hours later on in the year will be wasted.
Teaching procedures at the beginning of the year can be boring and repetitive for teachers and students. Make teaching procedures engaging and memorable by introducing them with read alouds and reinforcing them by playing games.
You can find our list of recommended back to school read alouds in this blog post. We also have coordinating lesson plans, games, and activities to make teaching procedures stress-free and fun in our First Week of School Lesson Plans resource.
After teaching procedures the next big goal for the first week of school is to begin building classroom community. Students should begin getting to know one another through activities like scavenger hunts, would you rather, and other team building games.
Another great way to build classroom community at the beginning of the year is through STEM challenges. Our first week of school lesson plans includes several games and team building STEM challenges to help set a positive classroom tone at the beginning of the year.
Create a culture of collaboration, community, and respect at the beginning of the year by setting clear procedures and building a strong classroom community!
Find First Week of School lesson plans, read aloud lessons, games, and STEM challenges in the STEM Teachers Club. These lessons are included with membership.
Spend Less Time Planning and More Time Teaching!
Hands-on STEM learning starts here.
Find ready-to-use STEM Activities and Science Curriculum, Practical Professional Development, and a Community of Educators to help you teach STEM with confidence.
You can get all 1000+ STEM Challenges by Carly and Adam as part of the STEM Teachers Club. Save 30% on your first month/year using coupon Code: CarlyAndAdamBlog.
Spend Less Time Planning and More Time Teaching!
Hands-on STEM learning starts here.
Find ready-to-use STEM Activities and Science Curriculum, Practical Professional Development, and a Community of Educators to help you teach STEM with confidence.
You can get all 1000+ STEM Challenges by Carly and Adam as part of the STEM Teachers Club. Save 30% on your first month/year using coupon Code: CarlyAndAdamBlog.