Reviewing at Back to School

When you start the back to school season, reviewing is essential. If you spend the first three to four weeks reviewing previous standards and skills, you will help yourself so much in the long run. In this post, I am going to give you quick tips on ways to review standards throughout the first few weeks of school!

Reviewing Reading

For two weeks, I review one reading skill each day. For example, Monday I will teach a lesson on plot, Tuesday I will teach a lesson on characters, and Wednesday point of view. All of these are standards that you will teach throughout the school year, but at a more in-depth level, so this is a great way to kick it off. 

For each lesson, you can teach a lesson with the whole class and then give them an activity to work on related to it. During this activity, you can go and work with different groups of students individually. This gives you time to really get to know your new students and their abilities.

>>If you teach third grade, grab all the lessons prepped and ready to go for you here!<<<

Reviewing Math

This is a GREAT way to introduce math centers. (Read more about math centers here).

You can introduce one new center each day while reviewing. So, I could be reviewing addition and subtraction skills, while teaching my center. 

On Monday, you can teach students how to appropriately and correctly run the hands-on center in your math centers. For practice at the center, students can play an addition and subtraction game.

Then, on Wednesday you can teach the at your seat center and have them work on a worksheet that is addition and subtraction based! 

Reviewing Writing

In upper elementary, it is essential that you go back and really review the SIMPLE parts of writing. Students need to review what a sentence is and how you make one, how you edit a sentence, etc. 

Really, you just need to review how to write. 

You can do this while working on writing stamina in your first few weeks. 

(Here are some activities that you can do to work on writing stamina in the first few weeks). 

Each day, you will do any writing activity, but before you start that prompt or writing activity, you will review one simple skill. So, on Monday you will have the kids write about their summer, but before you start, you are going to do a quick lesson on punctuation. You can then time them for writing stamina and go over their use of punctuation at the end of the lesson. 

By doing these simple review strategies in the first few weeks of school you will set yourself up for a much more successful school year!