4 first-day-of-school activities for students

Wondering how to engage your students after a summer of fun? Here are four exciting activities to help your kids transition back into school mode.

If you have a group of kids that don't know each other well, you can pair them up and have them interview each other.

• Come up with a list of questions to ask, such as:
  • Where do you live?
  • What's your favourite TV show?
  • What's your middle name?
  • What's your favourite hobby?
• Then, have the kids prepare reports based on their interview questions and have them take turns getting up in front of the class and introducing the person they interviewed.

Having a job will give your students a sense of responsibility and ownership.

On the first day of school, assign everyone in the class a different job that they have to do every day or once a week for the whole school year.

• Jobs can be anything from straightening chairs, doing roll call or putting supplies away.
• You can have your students pick their jobs from a hat or assign them based on where they are sitting.

Playing a memory game is a fun way to help the students (and the teacher!) learn each other's names.

• Go around once and have everyone say their name and favourite animal or hobby out loud.
• Then, call on kids and have them say one person in the group's name and favourite hobby or animal.
• The person next to them then has to choose a different person's name and hobby.
• Go around the circle until everyone has had a turn.

You can use the first day of school to have kids start a journal.

• For the first entry, give them a prompt, such as:
  • What they did over the summer
  • Who they spent time with
  • Where they went
  • Their favourite part of summer

This is something your students can keep up with throughout the year to record their thoughts.

Getting your students to focus on the first few days back in school can be a challenge for any teacher but with these activities, the students will have fun and get back into the swing of things.