The BEST Back to School Resources

Back to school is such a fun and exciting time of the year for students and teachers. With these back to school resources, you can really engage your students in learning right off the bat! 

Back to School Read Aloud Companions

Setting up a reading climate is something that you want to do right from the start of school. Reading books aloud to your students in the first few weeks of school can help do that!

Read books like The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires and Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller (plus, 4 more).

Then, do engaging activities that will teach students about things like family culture, characteristics of a good friend, and more!

Check out the book companions here!

Back to School Writing Resources 

Want to get students writing during back to school season? This resource is perfect for you!

Each day the teacher will read a mentor text and do the discussion questions that are involved with the text.

Then, they will do a whole class activity that is fun and engaging, plus relates to the back to school ideas!

When they are done with all that, they do a writing activity!

This is a great way to assess where your students are in writing at the beginning of the year!

Grab 5 writing activities for back to school here!

Back to School with EPIC

Do you love EPIC? (if you don’t know what it is, read about it here) 

Well if you do, use this resource to get students started on EPIC right away. Students will read a book on EPIC and answer the questions to go along with it. Then, they do a digital skill sheet that relates to the book.

The best part? This is all digital so NO prep for you at all! Welcome an easy back to school activity!

Grab the back to school EPIC book companions here! 

Back to School Challenge Resources

Do you need to assess what your kids know in each subject, but you don’t want to bore them the first few weeks with a long assessment? Well, that is where challenges come in.

Students will work through rigorous tasks, but they won’t realize they are doing it because they are trying to complete a challenge! The challenge will give them some kind of prize at the end, a prize of your choosing!

They are fun, engaging, and help you to really see what your students know and don’t know from the previous year!

Grab the reading back to school challenge here!

And the math challenge here!

Back to School Review from Last Year

Reviewing what was learned the previous school year is an essential part of the back to school season. Making sure that you go over each standard is key to setting students up for success, plus you can use that review time to really teach your students how your classroom works.

I always suggest spending 2-4 weeks reviewing your previous standards (I always do 4). 

These lessons are perfect for reviewing reading standards!

Morning Meeting 

Morning meeting was my FAVORITE time of the day. It is the time of the day when you are really just focusing on getting to know your students and building relationships with them. It is where you truly become a family. 

Morning meeting is simple and only takes 5-10 minutes. You complete an activity, talk about a question, and greet each other. It is simple and fun, but so worth it!

Check out the first week here for FREE!

Then, grab the rest of the year here!

I hope one of these resources can help you create an engaging and meaningful learning experience in the first few weeks of school!