Favorite Back to School Activities!

It's that time!
You know school's in sight when TPT has it's big summer sale.

All my products are part of this promotion!  

Come visit my store and take a look around. I have lots of resources geared to the beginning of the year! All my postings are activities that I actually created to use in my own classroom. 

Here are some of my tried and trues....I use these activities each and every September!

I LOVE this way of introducing rules to my students. 

We discuss and brainstorm actions and consequences (causes and effects)  using a flow chart.

Students need to buy into why we have rules in the first place. 

This gets them to thinking about why they are important to remember and follow: 

This set includes all you need!  

Poetry about rules to add to your poetry journals: 

Matching cards:

Games and more: 

You can find this set by clicking this link: 

The Reason for Rules

Another favorite activity is the ME Museum!

This is a great way to create classroom connections and foster deeper relationships. 

Me Museum

Here students create a museum display based on themselves.

I begin by reading the beautiful book, Big Al. 

Big Al

It is about a rather strange looking fish who has trouble making friends because of the way he looks. 

The other fish don't take the time to get to know what he is really all about. 

He ends up doing a good deed that gets the fish to pay attention to him. 

When they get to know him, they love him!

This is a great springboard to the ME Museum.

I want my kids to get to know each other inside and out!

I asked students to bring in an object that helped us get to know more about them. 

A photograph, favorite belonging, or an object related to a hobby or something they love. 

They got to meet with a partner to share what they brought and explain a bit about it. 

That was our prewriting step...our oral rehearsal. 

 Students then wrote a simple paragraph about the object and explained why it was important to them. They needed to include a main idea or topic sentence and three or four detail sentences.  Because it was something they knew a lot about, it was easier to draft some good supporting details.

We created our "museums" on the tops of our desks.  We designed a Museum sign, and set out our items and paragraphs. 

Students can tour each others' museums to learn about their new classmates. 

I took pictures of the students standing in front of their museum and we used that as our first classroom hall display.  

This makes a great way to tell others about our class and the special kids who fill it!

Click the link to check out this product: 

Let's Make a ME Museum!

Please visit and follow my store to keep updated on products I am listing. 

I am currently working on science and more poetry files. 

I will try them out and then post them soon!

Happy back to school shopping!