First Week in Kindergarten
It is the first week of kindergarten! What do I teach?
I get this question all the time! I am so excited to put together this page together for you. I’m sharing our favorite first week of kindergarten read aloud stories and the free coordinating printables I made to go with them. Plus I will show you how I assess my new kinders - with a FREE assessment tool - how to teach rules and expectations, what we cover in those first few days along with pictures and ideas.
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We usually start school on a Wednesday, so I have three days where I do “get to know you” activities, ice breakers, songs, procedures, rules and expectations, assessments and just help my kiddos adjust to kindergarten.
Ready to get planning for you kindergarten cuties?!
Let’s get started!
FREE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN PLANS
The first day of kindergarten is one of my favorite days of the entire year! I am still nervous every year, and I just can’t wait to see the sweet faces I get to spend the next ten months with.
I have learned to keep it very simple the first day, and in fact the entire first week.
So many kids come to kindergarten not knowing a single letter, how to push in a chair or line up. Needless to say, I do not plan anything elaborate.
We focus on routines, expectations and classroom procedures. It is worth the time investment now… I promise!
I also focus on getting to know my cuties and helping them get to know me.
If they leave my classroom on the first day of kindergarten loving school… then my first day was a success.
So it is the first day of kindergarten. What do I do? CLICK HERE
I will walk you through what I do, minute by minute in my free first day of school lesson plans.
Here is an overview of the free activities you will find on these plans. These are the three books I read on the first day of school.
PETE THE CAT SCHOOL TOUR
I love to read this book on the first day of school for so many reasons. It is the perfect way to introduce students to how exciting and fun school is, and there is no need to be nervous or afraid! “Did Pete cry? Goodness, NO!”
Pete tours around his school to the library, the lunch room, recess, etc. while rocking in his school shoes. So after we read the story, I take my kinders on a tour of our school. They are so excited to see where Pete has been.
The day before school starts, I hang up colorful cat paws all around our school - outside the nurse’s office, the cafeteria, the music room, etc. so as we are taking the tour the children love to be on the lookout for “Pete’s Paws.”
And even better, this book comes with a free song and the kids absolutely LOVE singing along as Pete is rocking in his school shoes (and this song saves my poor voice!)
This s one of the first activities we do in the day when they need to get up and moving.
MISS BINDERGARTEN GETS READY FOR KINDERGARTEN
On the first day of kindergarten, we love to read this book! It goes through the alphabet and talks about what all the kiddos did to get ready for kindergarten. “Adam Krup wakes up!” “Brenda Heeth brushes her teeth.”
I love how it goes through all the letters in the alphabet, uses rhyming words and of course all the students can relate to getting ready for kindergarten (you’ll hear lots of, “I did that too!”)
I created a FREE activity you can do with students after you read the book.
After reading, I pass one out to every student and they draw a picture of what they did to get ready for kindergarten.
I go around to each student and either write it for them or write their sentence on a sticky note and they copy it on the lines (just depending on the student’s abilities.) I have also written in highlighter on the lines and they can trace it.
“Tiara tied her shoes…” “Damian ate breakfast…” “Josh put on his backpack….” It is so fun to see what they come up with!
Depending on your class size, you may need parent or teach helpers so you can get to every student while they are coloring.
You can bind them all together and make a class book when you are done!
FRUIT SALAD FRIEND
We love reading this book and making friendship salad in our classroom on the first day of school!
It is the perfect book and activity to discuss character and what it means to be a good friend.
The book Fruit Salad Friend outlines the recipe for a true friend including kindness, forgiveness, empathy, inclusion, communication and acceptance.
Some of these words are BIG for kinders, but that doesn’t mean they cannot understand.
We do a hands-on follow up activity and actually make kindness salad (and this is the perfect snack to have in the afternoon!) I prepare a bunch of fruit beforehand, and the children help me mix it all together.
I like to use strawberries, blueberries, mandarin oranges, raspberries, pineapple and then cool whip on top!
I label each ingredient as one from the story ( the bowl of strawberries we say is kindness, the blueberries is forgiveness, etc.)
The students then each get to eat their own bowl of friendship salad and they are thrilled!
Afterwards we do a follow up activity. There are two versions you can choose from.
Personally, I do not like my kinders to cut and glue on the first day, so we do the coloring version. Students color all of the “ingredients” in their fruit salad bowl.
Use one or both!
I’M SHARING THESE RESOURCES FOR FREE!
I upload all of my free resources to our exclusive freebie library so they are all in one spot for your convenience. Inside our library, you’ll find three pages of free resources including sight words, phonics, math, reading activities, assessments and even a free calendar set!
All you need is your email to sign up.
My free first day of kindergarten lesson plans, along with all of the read aloud activities shown on this page are in our freebie library.
Note: if you signed up at the top of this page, you do not need to sign up again!
Many of these alphabet activities are perfect for the first few weeks of school.
Try them all for FREE HERE
SUMMER SALE - save on our COMPLETE ALPHABET BUNDLE and never again search for engaging activities to teach letter names and sounds!
WHAT DOES THE REST OF THE FIRST WEEK IN KINDERGARTEN LOOK LIKE?
All of the resources that are free on this post are also located in the freebie library.
I am sharing my lesson plans for the rest of the first week in kindergarten as well.
Since we start school on a Wednesday, I have two more days this week and we focus on building relationships, classroom rules and procedures, I do back to school assessments (free on this post too!) and we have fun with read aloud books and activities.
CLASSROOM RULES AND EXPECTATIONS
I am still very focused on teaching classroom rules and procedures. I started teaching them the first day of school and we continue learning and reviewing all of the expectations for the next couples of weeks CLICK HERE
We cannot practice these enough - and we love that they are positive using the words “I CAN” - to see the entire slideshow and to print a FREEBIE you can check out the blog post HERE
This download is also included with my free lesson plans inside the library.
BACK TO SCHOOL KINDERGARTEN ASSESSMENTS
My goal is to complete all of my student assessments by the time we are done with school on that first Friday. I like to be able to look over the data so I can get my instructional groups going as soon as possible.
I put the assessment mats in page protectors. I record their answers right on to their recording sheets. You can have them write their names and numbers whole group or when you have them one on one.
Having an aide or parent help you with these is incredibly wonderful.
I assess letter names, letter sounds, writing their name, writing numbers 1-10, identifying numbers 1-10, rhyming, shape identification, and counting that first week of school.
I have found it is easiest to continue instruction and have the aides and/or parents who I have trained to pull students 1:1 to complete these assessments.
This assessment is FREE CLICK HERE
For a more thorough kindergarten pre-screener assessment CLICK HERE
POETRY FOR BACK TO SCHOOL
We love doing poetry every month in the classroom!
This poetry unit comes with already made poems as well as activities for students to create their own poem for every month!
Students enjoy the poetry and you’ll love that all the prep work is done for you!
These August poems are in our freebie library too!
CLICK HERE to read my poetry blog post
LABELING
One of the first steps to teaching reading and writing is learning that words have meaning. How do I teach this? With labeling activities!
I introduce labeling on the second day of school too.
These activities even come with sticker labels, or they can be printed and students can cut/glue.
I made differentiated versions to provide scaffolding. Some pages the students match the words/labels, and others I have them try to sound out the words.
You can grab this adorable label the dog FREEBIE HERE
CENTERS
We use our centers the first week of school! I do not set out centers that require a lot of attention to detail or directions for the first couple weeks.
My goal is for students to practice using our materials the correct way, and learn how to clean up when they are done.
These adorable center labels are FREE and you can grab them HERE
ABC CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM FREEBIE
Chicka Chicka BOOM BOOM is a must read during the first week of school.
This book is so cute for the beginning of the year. It has a fun pattern to it, uses rhyming and goes through the alphabet.
Then I give each student one of these printable activities.
They color the tree, and I place a bunch of letter stickers on a tray on each table.
They find the letters in their name and spell and stick their name to the tree.
See how cute they turn out below!
RHYMING
We do so much with rhyming at the beginning of the year! I love using this book, The Gruffalo.
The kids are so engaged and it is an adorable story.
We then match picture cards and play a few rhyming games and complete an activity. See more about how I teach rhyming HERE
After we read the story, we have fun putting the events in order, matching the animal words and retelling the story.
All of these activities are free and available to print in our freebie library with my first week of school lesson plans.
LEARNING HOW TO GLUE
By day 3 of school, we finally tackle how to use glue - “Just a DOT not a LOT!” I tell my kiddos.
You can actually use glue sticks or white glue with this activity because the same rule pretty much applies to both. I have some kiddos who just want to use the entire bottle or the entire stick of glue for one project.
I use just little scraps of paper for this activity and they glue a piece to each little dot. Here I just used the same rainbow pieces that we use for the next activity shown below! Just cut extra and save yourself some prep time.
It is so funny how excited they are to do this activity! I make a BIG deal about using glue in our class.
This printable comes with day two lesson plans in the freebie library.
RAINBOW NAMES
This leads us right into our next activity. With rainbow names, we are practicing fine motor skills, how to use glue, our names, letter recognition and colors!
These are so cute to hang in the hallway or on a bulletin board. This is super easy to prep… just write student names in black marker on a large piece of white construction paper.
I cut strips of color paper on the big cutter and you can keep them separated by color or put them all together.
Students glue them over each letter to make their rainbow name. There is a cute rainbow song on youtube I show them first so they can sing the colors of the rainbow in order.
FIRST WEEK IN KINDERGARTEN - BONUS READ ALOUDS AND FREE ACTIVITIES
Here are three more of our favorite read aloud books and activities for the first week in kindergarten.
These activities are free printables as well come with my first week of lesson plans.
Countdown to Kindergarten and Kindergarten Rocks are both classics for the first week or two you’re in school. You can’t go wrong with these cute books about getting ready for kindergarten.
Have you read A My Name is Alice yet with your kiddos? You are in for a treat! We love this book so much, and it is perfect for the first week of school. It is included in my second day of school lesson plans (print my free plans in our freebie library)
After reading it, we then make a class book: K is for Kindergarten
It is such a cute story with the letters of the alphabet, rhyming and kids’ names.
HANDWRITING
If you’ve read other posts on my blog, you’ll know I am a huge advocate for teaching handwriting - and keeping our standards high for students to use correct formation and directionality. Bottom line - handwriting is very important!
It can be challenging to teach just because it often requires one on one attention and a ton of follow through and practice. But it can be done!
I use a systematic approach, and I teach letters in groups based on how they are formed. This helps students see the connection between letters and how to write them.
I start with BIG LINE DOWN letters because that is the easiest for students to make.
I don’t even teach a letter today, but I introduce the poster and we just practice starting at the star and making a big line down and stopping at the bottom line with Lesson #1.
That’s it! It seems simple but this is an important first step.
To read more about how I teach handwriting and to grab FREE worksheets to try please CLICK HERE
I CAN STATEMENTS
I love using “I Can” statements in the classroom. Children WILL live up to our expectations and they want to know what is expected so they can make good choices.
In the district I used to work in, we were required to have our objectives written on the board every single day. We also were required to read the objectives before each lesson, and revisit them at the end of the lesson to see if we met our goal(s).
You don’t realize how much time it takes to write out 7+ objectives a day… until you have to do it!
These adorable, color coded cards will save you tons of time, plus they are in student friendly definitions with adorable pictures. Just print, cut apart and use in a pocket chart.
You can read more about how I use I Can Statements and see everything that is included HERE
The headers are free to print in our freebie library.
I just released my brand new six-week curriculum to help students get ready for kindergarten!
This is perfect for end of the year Pre-K or the first few weeks in kindergarten.
Try an entire week for FREE CLICK HERE
