Games for the Beginning of School

August 14, 2023 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Those first few days of school are not days for getting a lot done. They’re for getting to know each other, learning classroom rules, and getting back into the groove of being in a classroom all day long.

So why not throw in some games that will have kids working together and having some fun together?

The list of beginning of school activities from A Grace-Filled Classroom aren’t all games necessarily, but it does include one of my favorites, which is the beach ball toss where you write different questions on the ball and then toss it. The question your hand lands on is the one you answer. There’s also a printable “find a friend” (variation on person bingo) in the linked post.

This escape room for the classroom from Teachers Are Terrific (available at Teachers Pay Teachers) is perfect for fourth and fifth grade and will get kids up and moving. As described on the blog:

In this Escape Room, students match words to categories and then unscramble a message for the first lock code. For the second task, students complete a math puzzler to open the locked box. For the last task, they use a secret code to decipher a message that will lead them to the lock numbers.

The STEM challenge comes from kids choosing from available materials to illustrate a class rule in a physical way.

Proud to Be Primary has a great list of getting to know you games (including the beach ball one above), including asking questions with the roll of a dice or the color of candies, making paper dolls for each student and much more. These are great, relatively low-prep ideas you can do with kids when you need to fill time or just want to do a group activity.

Do you have a favorite beginning of school game to do with your kids? Let’s hear about it!

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Printable Letter Books for Preschoolers

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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