Favorite Back to School Activities

Hi!  It's Hollie from The Razzle Dazzle Classroom... I'm so excited to be joining the crew at iTeach First! For my first post, I'm going to share some of my favorite back to school activities!

1. You can't begin the year without reading First Day Jitters and making your own Jitter Juice!  I always use Green Hawaiian Punch and Sprite... it works great!!!

2. I love starting off the year with a classroom pledge. My kiddos help write their promise and then they sign the bottom...

3. You can't go wrong with Kevin Henkes.... His books are PERFECT for the beginning of the school year!! I always begin the year with a Kevin Henkes author study.  My students can relate to each story/character and I use this author study to introduce imperative reading skills and strategies that we will be learning and applying throughout the year.  

We start off with Chrysanthemum... My students relate to the text by writing about what makes them "wilt" and "bloom." This whole unit comes from my Kevin Henkes Author Study... but you can grab this cute chrysanthemum activity for FREE HERE. 

A few years ago, I added all of our Kevin Henkes work to the bulletin board and titled it "What do Good Readers do?" Then... We added our crafts and strategy sheets to the board each day! It turned out super cute!  I didn't have room for Wemberly or Lilly's Boots... I think I had to hang them in our room.. ha!

Each day that we learn a strategy, we add to our anchor chart...

EVERYTHING Kevin Henkes Can be found HERE...

4.  These mathematicians from Amy Lemons are the perfect way to begin math... Actually, I LOVE her entire unit!!! You can find it HERE.

5. Howard B. Wigglebottom... need I say more?  I love reading ALL of the Howard B. Wigglebottom books because my students learn to find the central message in a story, but most importantly they learn some of my expectations for the school year!

Each day we find the central message of the story, learn to apply it to our lives,  and then add it to an anchor char like this..

I am a huge advocate of whole body listening... so Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen is PERFECT for my classroom!!!

I spend and ENTIRE day teaching my students the importance of teamwork and appropriate behavior for working in groups. Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Sportsmanship is the perfect book!!!

We also do a ton of fun group work activities.

Like... marshmallow towers!!!!

 And... Silent puzzles!

We learn about bullying with Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Bullies.

And... The importance of doing what makes us happy and not feeling the need to always "fit in."

All of the Howard B. activities come from HERE!

There you have it... A few of my favorites!!!!

I hope you have a FANTASTIC beginning to the new school year!  Nothing compares to the excitement, eagerness to learn, and the thought of new beginnings that a new year brings... Enjoy every exhausted moment because you are changing lives!!!

Hollie