First Week

It has been a very long week, but I made it.  I am excited to start academics next week and see what my students can do!  The first week is all about procedures and routines.  If we don't do it right the first time, we go back and try again.  I must have said that phrase 50 times last week.  I have 27 students in my classroom this year and there are a lot of personalities within my room.  This week we also spent a lot of time of getting to you know activities.  I love getting to know my students and talking to them about what they did outside of school.  I love hearing about their baseball games and play dates with their friends.
Because the first week of school is so different than the normal school year I wanted to share with you what I like to do for the first week of school.  I know it is very crazy time of the school year and very busy, so I try to keep my first week plans the same each year so I know not to miss anything. Most of the activities we do this week are procedures and a lot of talking, but we do get to do some fun activities too.

The first week of school book and the first grade is WS are from Fun with Firsties There are a lot more activities that she includes in this pack, but this is all we have time to do in the first week.  The summer writing on day 2 is my summer craftivity that you can get here. This is something that I like to do so that I can hang up my students work by the end of the first week of school.
The All About Me pennant is free on TPT from Kate Boynton.  I love hanging this up for Back to School Night and having the parents look at them.  It is a nice touch to my classroom.
We always start school on the Tuesday after Labor Day, so this year it was a late start, but only have to plan for 4 days.
These are the Read-A-Louds that I used with the 1st week of school.  These do change each year, as I find and add new books to my collection.

First Grade Stinks(top left) was a new book that I read for the first time this year to my class.  I loved this book and will be adding it to my first week read a lounds from now on.  It is about a girl who thinks first grade is going to stink because it is so different from kindergarten.  As she goes through first grade she realizes that it is fun and loves 1st grade.
This book really connected with a lot of my students who were still upset about leaving kindergarten.  It made them realize that it was OK to feel the way they were, but that they have a lot to look forward to in first grade!