Favorite First Week of School Activities

A new school year is coming up and I thought I would share some of my favorite activities that I do in my classroom during the first week back.

Get to Know Your Classmates Task Cards

This is a great way for my students to get to know their classmates better in a relaxed atmosphere.  I partner them up (or make small groups) and together they rotate around the room to each of the task cards I have hanging up.  On each card there is a question or discussion prompt.  One person reads the card and then each person in the partnership/group gives their answer.  I love hearing the discussions that happen as the kids move around to each card!

Marshmallow Challenge

I love this challenge, and the kids LOVE this challenge!  C

lick on the photo to go to the website where there is a TED talk about this challenge and some further directions.

I give very basic directions for this activity, basically the three things you see on the graphic

1.  18 minutes

2.  teams of four

3.  tallest freestanding structure

This is a great problem solving and teamwork activity and it is so interesting to watch how students work together and who steps up as a positive leader.

Scientific Method and Candy Worms

Another favorite of my students!  This is a great activity to introduce/review the steps of the scientific method at the beginning of the year.  It is fun, hands on, and academic!  Kids make a hypothesis about what will happen to a candy work when it sits in water for 24 hours.  

I was really intrigued to hear some of the things my students thought would happen:  nothing, it will shrink, it will lose all the color, it will dissolve, it will become harder, it will fall apart...

There is a little experiment guide where the students can fill out information for each of the steps of the scientific method as they go through this experiment.  I love that this incorporates measurement, writing, making detailed lists, following directions, observation, and following a plan.  But, it is so fun the kids don't even realize how much work they are actually doing!

Name Art

Before school starts I use bulletin board paper to make a name sign for each student.  I printed out each letter of the alphabet (2 letters per page) and then used that to trace over for each students name sign.  The kids get to color these in however they want, patterns, illustrations, crayons, markers- be creative!  This is a great activity for when kids need a little down time that first week back and any students who don't finish can continue to work on it throughout the week when they finish other things early.

I hang these up around the top of my classroom and they are a great all year decoration that personalizes our space!

Do you have any great "first week" activities that have worked well for you, and that your students LOVE?  Leave me a comment- I would love to hear all about them!

Flash Freebie! STEM Activity

Are you looking to incorporate more STEM activities into your classroom?

I am making my popular "Alien Airlines" STEM product is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop for a limited time (now through March 20th).   

Try out a fun STEM activity that teaches about the science of flight for free!  

Click on the image above if you would like to download this resource.

It's a TpT Sale!

Teachers Pay Teachers is having a "Teachers are Heroes" sale on Wednesday, February 25th.

I have joined in and put my whole TpT shop on sale.  If you use the TpT promo code HEROES you will be able to get a 28% discount!  

Now is the time to stock up on some great resources at some great prices!

A few of my favorite resources from my TpT shop include:

                 

 

I already have a crazy number of items on my wish list that I plan to purchase during the sale!  

Biomes Poster Project

We wrapped up our study of biomes this week by creating biome posters.

The kids worked in groups to gather more in depth information about the biome that was assigned to them.  They would need to share/present this information on a large poster.

Some of the requirements of things they had to show on their poster included:

     name of the biome (title)

     temperature/climate

     a description of the landforms in the biome

     plants and animals found in the biome

     a food web from the biome

     at least 2 plant adaptaions

     at least 2 animal adaptations

   

The kids loved this project!  I really think it gave them the time to really go in depth learning about one biome, and I could tell they better understood why plants/animals had certain adaptations and how they helped them survive.

On the final day each group had to present their poster to the class and explain the information they learned.  I was really impressed by the quality of their posters and the work they put in to presenting to the class.
   

Animal Adaptations

I love teaching about animal adaptations!  Kids always seem to love to learn anything about animals, so they were engaged right from the start when we started this topic a couple weeks ago.

We talked about the six biomes (tundra, taiga, savanna, rainforest, deciduous forest and desert) and the features of each environment.  I then showed the class many photos of plants and animals from all over the world and we discussed the adaptations each plant or animal has made to survive and thrive in its environment.

Many of my kids had never really stopped to think about why a birds beak may be shaped a certain way, why an animals ears are small or large, or why some animals in the desert burrow underground.  They could not stop talking and sharing there new insights into the structures and behaviors of all kinds of plants and animals.

I then showed two short video clips from StudyJams.   They have a great video on plant adaptations and another one on animal adaptations.  I don't know about your students, but I can show a video once and they will remember every word, jingle, or idea that is in it.

Then I introduced their project.  (I have a very arts and crafty class this year, so they are always up for a project).  I gave each kid a short scenario with details about an imaginary environment.  Their job was to create their own animal that would be able to survive in its environment.  They could make their animal as realistic or imaginary as they wanted to, but they had to include at least five adaptations on their animal that would allow them to survive (hunt food, stay warm/cool, stay safe from predators etc...).  They had to label each adaptation explaining what purpose it served.

student created animal with adaptations for its environment

close up of the labeled adaptation

The kids LOVED this project.  They could not stop talking about how they were going to design their animal, what features it would have, what it would eat.......  I knew they would enjoy the project, but I was not prepared for this much excitement!  It was great to see them so excited to apply what they had learned about adaptations.


Here are a few more student samples:

As you can see, the kids came up with some really creative animals and some great adaptations that would help their animals survive.  These are definitely going up in the hallway for conferences!