First Day of School Printables

My daughter has aged out of back to school printables, but if you have a little one and want to record some of their favorite things on the occasion of the first day of school, these printable coloring pages are a quick and easy way to do it.

Crayola has a super simple first day coloring page that includes grade, height, favorite color, teacher name and what they want to be when they grow up.

Paper Trail Designs has a set of printables that say first day of whatever grade the child is starting. They can fill in name, age, school, teacher and what they want to be when they grow up.

Miss Helen’s Hippos on Teachers Pay Teachers has a free downloadable first day printable that includes three pages for kids to fill in with drawings and words about their school, teacher, friends, backpack and what they look like on the first day.

Mrs. Merry has an electronic file you can personalize for your own child or all the kids in your classroom if you do first day pictures at school. You can add the child’s name, grade, school or teacher, favorite color, book and food and what they want to be when they grow up.

Skip to My Lou has the first day printable pictured above, which includes space to draw themselves and write about their teacher, a new friend, even something they didn’t love about their lunch! Such a fun way to capture some real memories from the big day.

And if you like a sign for photos, check out my super easy chalkboard sign DIY over on my blog. We’ll see if my seventh grader will still take photos with it this year!

My brother went through a phase where he was obsessed with maps. He loved to look at maps and he would draw maps of places real and imagined. He even drew maps that followed our route when we’d go to visit our grandparents in another state!

I assume there are still kids who go through map phases, and kids with an interest in history and how things got to be the way they are. Both kinds of kids will enjoy the book Borders: Understanding the Lines that Unite and Separate Us by Karim Ressouni-Demigneux, with illustrations by Karine Maincent.

The book describes how the original borders were natural, such as oceans, rivers, mountains and deserts, and while some of those borders are still in use today, many borders are human made, decided by treaties or carved out by colonizers. It covers the history of people congregating in one place and how city-states evolved into empires, how maps are drawn and how human conflicts can reshape borders.

There are stories about walls that reinforce borders, how borders work in the air and at sea, how people cross borders with passports or as refugees and how climate change is altering the borders of some countries.

You’ll also learn some fun border facts like the fact that if you stand in the middle of the bridge over the Zambezi River you can be in four countries at once because that’s where the borders of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe meet. Or how there is only one border crossing between India and Pakistan that’s closed each night in an elaborate ceremony.

The book talks about time zones, border towns and places where countries and parts of countries are inside other countries and places where borders are less important such as the European Union.

While there are serious subjects in the book, it’s still a fun read that’s sure to interest those kids around ages 8-12 who like travel, maps and weird but true facts.

About the book: 72 pages, hardcover, published 2026 by Blue Dot Kids Press. Suggested retail price $21.95.

Have you read?

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