The Best of Back to School | First Grade.

Last Updated on February 19, 2022 by Brie

Who else has already plunged in feet first to the new school year for this back to school season? With the first day of school already down for most teachers and home-school moms, it is time to settle into a fun routine for the school year. With all the chaos and excitement that back to school brings, you probably don’t have a lot of extra time on your hands right now. Even so, we all want to make sure that the few months go as well as possible!

To help you out, I wanted to share one of my favorite back to school activities for preschool through first grades: the Teachers pay teachers activity lessons! It can be hard to know exactly what to do on the first few weeks of school as we settle into the routine. Having several great back to school activities to talk about and help structure your time add a lot of value to the day.

What does a good back to school activity have?

A good back to school activity eases kids into the year and is FUN! Back to school activities can cover several basis, such as an introduction for students to the grade, a keepsake momentum to see where the student is at, or just a fun lesson to get the kids excited about school. You can grab a back to school welcome back from TPT here!

The Mommy Daughter Love website is about school activities for kids aged 6-12. It is such an exciting time to learn. I offer a variety of digital resources to aid you in your homeschooling or teaching journey, from ebooks to worksheets and even activity packs!

As a home-school mom my favorite back to school activity is the back to school PICTURES! We go big with back to school photo shoots, even dragging out the props like apples, and chalk to make all the cute photo signs. We always take our back to school pictures the very first day of class as a fun way to ease into school. Be sure to take photos of your kids throughout the year to watch them as they grow.

First Month of School

The first month of school is all about settling into routines and reviewing the content your students may have forgotten over the summer. During our first month of school we have had some awesome lessons. With the weather being so nice it is always fun to go outside and do reading or activity time. We also like to take a drive and go sightseeing, bringing a few worksheets on the road makes it more educational.

Another fun first month of school activity we have have been doing is VIRTUAL classes on the Outschool program! If you haven’t checked out the outschool program, you should! It is a must for homeschool families. It offers great ways to socialize and learn interesting topics that you might not get to teach your student. We have been participating in Spanish and art classes regularly! For the first month of school I even through in a one time introduction to recorder music class. My daughter loved it. One interesting thing about Outschool is the teachers can be from anywhere in the world! We even had a teacher from the UK.

So, how can you make the first month of school fun?

• Go outside
• Go sightseeing
• Take fun classes on Outschool
• First day of school photoshoots and activities
• Read fun new books
• Get fun new printable worksheets

Morning work is another great way that your student can settle into school for the day. Morning work is meant to be easy, and just slip kids into the “school” mindset.

Creative Writing Morning Work

Creative writing morning work is a fun way to get your little learners interested in school for the day! We have a three-week-long creative writing pack on TPT that you can check out here. Your little learner can enjoy 15 fun, creative writing morning work/busy work activity worksheets for kindergarten through second grade.

Have three fun filled weeks in the classroom by starting out the day with a silly morning work assignment that inspires creativity and good writing habits.

There are also pages to teach the hamburger method paragraph structure. Even if your learner isn’t a master speller, encouraging them to write more helps them improve their spring and reading abilities.

This pack is helpful wither you are in the classroom, or doing homeschool:

For Classroom Use: Have the students start each day with creative writing. This is a three week long unit where you can use a worksheet every day. (15 total worksheets). There are lots of fun prompts and you can randomly select students to share at the end of morning work time. You can also have students volunteer to share their work.

For Homeschool: Start out your kids morning with fun creative writing prompts for 3 weeks (15 total worksheets included). Teach the hamburger paragraph method and then dive into the creative writing prompts each day to develop good writing habits. These fun full color pages make for great keepsake crafts and a nice way to ease your student into the day.

What is included:

• 15 full color morning work pages with creative writing prompts. Have your students write about:
  • Would You Rather
  • Silly Monster Stories
  • All about animals
  • Learn the Hamburger Paragraph Set Up

Grab your creative writing pack for the year, today!

All About First Grade:

We used the Abeka program for kindergarten, and are sticking with it for the first grade year. You can check out more of our kindergarten experience with the Abeka Academy program here. So, far it has been an excellent homeschool program and the first grade video teacher is very up beat! I have a set of headphones with a microphone attached to them. This isn’t necessary for the Abeka lessons because they are not live, but I have found that my daughter participates better in the lessons when she wears them because she thinks the microphone is fun to talk into! If you are struggling to get your kids to participate in Abeka lessons, this might be a fun incentive for younger students! Grab a set of headphones off amazon here!

For some socialization and interaction with other kids throughout the day, we have been using utschool program for live video classes! They have great dance classes to get kids moving, as well as exciting things my daughter might not be learning at home, like Spanish! Last night while we were outside playing after one of her Spanish classes, she went around the yard and gardens pointing out all of the Spanish colors! She has occasionally been dropping other words in Spanish as well (and she has only been to two lessons so far!) This is very fun to watch!

How are we making first grade special?

One way we are making it special is with hamster reading time! My daughter has been doing a lot of reading to her pet hamster. Reading is her least favorite subject, but when she gets to bring her favorite fuzzy buddy along to class to sit on her book, it makes the whole thing go a little smoother!

Over all our first grade year is going really well! We are ahead on all of the workbooks through the Abeka Academy, and I am hoping we can keep up this nice pace. We are working with quite a few fun subjects this year. We don’t have EVERY subject every day though, and many of these subjects overlap with one another.

Subjects through Abeka:

• Phonics
• Reading circles
• Bible
• Spelling/poetry (this one is really cute!)
• Art/Social Studies/Science

Subjects I Teach:

• Reading Time/phonics reviews
• Morning work (calendar, 2D/3D shapes, beginner fractions, weather, planets, sight words)
• Math
• Cursive Hand writing
• Seatwork/homework worksheets

Outschool Subjects:

• Spanish
• Dance
• Art
• Music/extras

Hopefully everyone is settling nicely into their back to school routines for the year!

Brie