It’s time for lesson plans and Schedulin’ Sunday for the first week of school! Summer is over, and we are ready to kick off year 20! I cannot believe I’m starting my 20th year of teaching. WOW! Each week, we do our Schedulin’ Sunday post, where we share what we’re doing in our classroom for the week! We hope you find ideas, resources, and strategies to make your planning and prep easier!
So here’s what we have planned for the first week of kindergarten!
Lesson Plans
As always, you can download our weekly lesson plans by clicking on the image!
You can get our lesson plan templates here:
Lesson Plans: The First Day Of School
The first day of kindergarten is hard. It’s fun but hard so we take lots of deep breaths and focus on making memories while working on routines and procedures. Our first day is a half day, so it goes by quickly, and we never get everything done, and that’s ok!
For our morning arrival, we’re doing something new this year! As the kids arrive, they’ll get to join their friends and color our giant banner!
We start with our morning meeting. During our first morning meeting, we focus on learning MY NAME! I want the kids to leave the classroom knowing my name in case they get lost or confused after day 1. We go around the circle, and everyone says their name. Then we do our morning message and sing!
We do our first read-aloud, which is The King Of Kindergarten.
After reading the story, we talk about King’s Day and our day. We talk about the days are the same and different!
First Day: Names
On day 1, we also write our names. We do a name chart where everyone, including me, writes our names. Everyone does their best, and we cheer for each student!
After the name chart, everyone does independent practice. This is just to give me a baseline document and for me to observe if they can write their name, can they hold their pencils, etc.
We use our School Supply Research Project to learn about crayons. The kids come up with the rules for crayons and then they practice coloring a soccer ball. Why a soccer ball? I like all the different sections for the kids to color.
Click the soccer ball to get your FREE FILE!
The kids get their first day of school hats! I make these ahead of time and just staple them and put them on the kids at the end of the day!
And, believe it or not, we’re making cookies on the first day of kindergarten. True story. We make school bus cookies. Why? It’s a great way to make memories because it’s fun!
Lesson Plans: The First Week Of School
The first week of school is focused on routines and procedures, building relationships, and making memories! We also work on numbers, reading comprehension, colors and so much more!
Lesson Plans: Reading
We read The King And Queen Of Kindergarten this week. We work on listening, talking, and answering questions. I like these read-alouds for the first week because the kids can connect with the stories easily! They can relate to what happens in the stories because it’s what we did on our first days of school. We will talk about emotions and how we get to school. And we will draw of ourselves as the king/queen of kindergarten!
We also read Brown Bear Brown Bear and work on our favorite colors! After reading the story we color the pictures to see if they remember the story! And we graph our favorite colors!
Lesson Plans For The First Week Of School: Math
We kick off the first week of math by exploring manipulatives, number recognition, and counting. We also kick off Number Bootcamp!
Number Bootcamp is 20 days of number recognition, one-to-one correspondence, and math vocabulary!
We work on number recognition by pointing to numbers! Super easy and super informative! I just say a number and see if the kids can find the number and point to it!
Grab the FREE number mats here:
We also practice counting to 10. We are using our new Number Sense Mats! I give the students a school bus mat and manipulatives. I say a number and see if the kids can count the correct number of manipulatives onto the bus!
The First Week Of School: School Supplies
This week, we will learn to use pencils, scissors, and glue sponges! Each day, we do a different supply. The students generate the expectations. Then we practice. Each school supply contains a cut apart puzzle, which we use to practice cutting and gluing!
Friendship Bracelets
We also make friendship bracelets this week! This is another fun way to make memories and observe letter recognition, name recognition, and fine motor skills.
Here’s how it works:
Ahead of time, I place a name card, a pipe cleaner, and the letter beads for the name in a Ziploc bag. The student removes the name card and beads. They match the beads to the letters on the card. Once I see that they have the letters matched up, they slide them onto the pipe cleaner!
You can get the beads here:
Foodie Fun Friday
Foodie Fun Friday is a classroom tradition where we make a snack each Friday.
This week, we are making friendship salad. This snack sets the tone for the entire school year because we decide what kind of classroom we want and whether we want rotten bananas. We reference rotten bananas all year long!
The recipe is included in our Foodie Fun Friday resource!
FREEBIES
WEEKLY RESOURCES
Click below for the resources we are using in our classroom this week:
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