Back to School Organization Tips

Hello everyone!!! Welcome to this month's Elementary Entourage Back to School Bash theme! I hope you've been reading the rest of the blog posts for helpful back to school tips. Today I'd like to share with you some things I've done to get ready for school and some activities for students in the first couple of days. 

Door Decor!

This Minion is a super easy door decoration to do for back to school. All you do is cover the door in yellow paper. Make some overalls with blue paper. Glue two upside down foam bowls for the eyes and use black paper to create the eyeballs and eyeglasses. I found this much easier than the more detailed and intricate but beautiful doorways I've seen. When you are down for time, this one may work for you! Oh, on his shirt it says, "Our class is one in a minion."

Book Bags

I give my students a book bag at the beginning of the year. I've collected enough from the Target dollar spot when they have their Dr. Seuss stuff out. I hot glue the numbers and then use Command hooks to hang the bags. The hooks last all year as long as you don't over stuff the bag. And at the end of the year you can just pull them off easily without ruining the wall. Using book bags to store a couple of books from the classroom library has really helped with the overall chaos that can occur with too many students at the library at the same time. 

Word Wall

So I try to use all the spaces in my classroom efficiently. The book bags and my word wall hang below white boards and bulletin boards. This is an interactive word wall. I found some word wall/sight word cards on TPT. There are tons, sorry I don't have the link right now. I printed out the letters and again used hot glue to keep them on all year. First laminate them and then hot glue so they peel off easily at the end of the year. Throughout the year, students get the ring that has the word they can't spell and use that to help them write. 

Whole Class Incentive

I used Creative Clip's clip art to create my Compliment Cookies. I also used magnetic tape (you have to look that up), to attach the cookie jar and cookies. This was used for students during Specials or substitutes. If they received a compliment or a good report, then they could put a cookie in the jar and when they fill it up, they get a class reward, whatever you want it to be. If you'd like this, please click HERE! :)

First Day of School

This is my favorite first day of school activity. I make homemade Play doh for the kids the night before. I put some food coloring in the middle by making a hole and put it into a Zip lock bag. Then while I am organizing supplies and dealing with beginning of the first day hectic-ness, I have kids smash up the Play doh (while it is still inside the bag), to "unleash," the color and color up their Play doh. Keeping it in the bag helps to not get the color all over their hands. After they play with it for a while, they are instructed to create anything out of it. After they do so, they draw a picture of it and write about what they created. Quick, time consuming, (which you want on the first day), and easy! You can grab this writing template HERE. 

Hope some of these tips came in handy!!! Have a great year!