What To Do The First Week of Kindergarten and Classroom Pictures

We did it! We survived the first week of kindergarten! I am so lucky to be working with the best partner teacher on the planet 🙂 And we absolutely have the best class in the whole entire world!

We met our adorable class on Tuesday; they were so eager and ready to learn! I just love it! Here’s a look at what we did on our first week!

First Day of School Pictures

We took our first day pictures with the cute little “K” for kindergarten! {huge thanks to Michelle from Apples and ABCs for this adorable idea and tutorial!! As you can see, I pretty much copied her exactly ;)} Each student stood in front of the wall holding the K. We use these pictures for their first writing assignment and then put them in their memory books.

We read our first read-aloud, Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten and then brainstormed some ideas on how we get ready for kindergarten! We completed this readers response and drew pictures to match. The students wrote {or attempted to write} their name on the line. While the kiddos were drawing their picture, my co-teacher and I walked around the room asking the students what they did to get ready for kindergarten. We wrote their response on their paper.

{download the reader’s response page here}

Brown Bear Craft

We read Brown Bear Brown Bear and made these super cute puppets. {Thanks Mrs. Ricca for the freebie!} We practiced identifying colors and following step-by-step directions. I would say “everyone point to the bird!” and all the students would touch the bird. Then I would ask “Do you remember what color the bird was in the story?” Some students were able to read the text under the picture too! Then I would say “everyone find a red crayon and hold it up in the sky!” Each student grabbed a red crayon and colored the bird red. We did this until we colored every animal from the story. We even sang our color songs while we colored! My class did such a fabulous job!

{download the brown bear freebie here}

Finally, we cut and glued our work onto a brown paper bag and used our puppets to retell the story to a partner. It was absolutely adorable!

Math Practice

During our math block we made our September calendars. Each student chose one color crayon and traced all the numbers on the calendar. We will use these calendar pages every month so it was a great introduction to our math routine.

We used our “4 corners, 8 corners” cutting strategy to make our apples {you can find more easy crafts here!} and glued them to the top of our calendar.

Working on Shapes

We also met some new friends! Each day we learned about two shapes, and on Friday we played the shape game! This was the perfect introduction to our shape unit for the second week of school.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3B03q630QYLdnRqLWNnYVk2TXM/edit?usp=sharing

My class absolutely loved these! We learned each poem and talked about the characteristic of each shape. We even learned that Sandy Square has a booooyfriend 😉 After we introduced each shape, we hung the posters in our classroom for students to reference throughout the year.

{Download the shape poems here and ignore the fact that I clearly need more ink 😉 I printed 2 to a page so that they printed out smaller than a regular sheet of paper.}

After we met our new friends and talked all about the shapes, we sat in a big circle {applying what we learned about circles!} and played this super fun shape game. I even made up a song to the tune of “Are You Sleeping” that goes like this:

“Make a circle, won’t you please, won’t you please, won’t you please. Make a circle, won’t you please. Sit in a circle!”

Then I walked around our circle with a bunch of plastic shapes in a bag and had each student pull out one shape. They told their neighbor what shape they pulled out {to practice identifying and to help their neighbor if they weren’t sure} and then we played the Shape Game! I sang this song and if they were holding the shape I called out, they stood up.

After everyone had a chance to stand up, we switched our shapes and played again. It was a lot of fun 🙂

This was definitely a long, but very fun-filled first week of school!

Now it’s time for some classroom pictures!

Classroom Photos

We are so lucky to have such a nice sized room! We spent a few weeks over the summer getting it set up. We used plastic tablecloths to back the bulletin boards and added some cute borders.

Here is one of our bulletin boards. We stapled “beachy” scrapbook paper to the wall, then attached paper clips along the top so we can easily slide work in and out. I’m also thoroughly obsessed with the chevron/polka dot double layered border! All of my borders are from MPM School Supplies!

Here’s a look at our calendar wall. We will add candles to each cupcake with our students’ names and birthdate. We put extra candles in our new student bags. {You can read all about how I handle getting new students throughout the year here and see our picture direction cards here}

This year we are going to count the days in school using base ten blocks. When I saw this idea on Pinterest all I could think was GENIUS!!!! I mean really, this makes so much more sense than counting with straws, and it ties directly to how we teach making 10’s in math!

I just threw some blocks in the pocket chart so you can see what I mean 😉 We will count the days with the ones cubes, then when we get to ten, we will switch out the cubes for a tens stick!

Here’s our word wall. We add words as we teach them! You can find some editable word wall cards here!

Another look at my class jobs!

Setting up for the First Day

We set up a supply station for the first day of school. Our school is super lucky to have our families donate classroom supplies. This set up really helped organize the supplies that were donated on the first day. It was so easy to put them away in the supply closet at the end of the day!

The super adorable labels are from Laura Martin’s TpT store. Next year, I’m just going to pin the labels directly onto the bag…they weren’t sturdy enough taped on like that! The students did a great job matching the supplies they brought to the pictures on the labels and dropping them into the bags.

First Day Treats

Finally, I made these sweet treats for my teammates to celebrate our first day! A cute little tag tied to a bag of chocolate kisses. I’m so fortunate to work with such a wonderful team and we all need a little chocolate pick-me-up at the end of a long first day 😉

{download the sweet treat tag here}

I hope these ideas helped you get ready for the first week of kindergarten! Being a kindergarten teacher is A LOT of work, so in case no one has told you, THANK YOU for doing it and good luck with your new school year!!