Whew! The first week of school is in the books. As most teachers do, I have a love/hate relationship with the first week of school.

In so many ways, kindergarten at the beginning of the year is defeating. You have to teach the students how to sit still, line up, wash their hands, get their own water…and just when you get them quiet on the rug to tell them something, *that* one kid blurts out something random and you are back to herding kittens.

But it’s also really special in so many ways. I love meeting my new little wonders. They are always so excited to start school and everything is new to them! Unlike older students, they haven’t been jaded into hating school and they are just the sweetest.

My favorite thing about the first week of kindergarten, though, is that it’s totally accepted, and even expected, that we will mostly be playing all day!

 

Nobody is walking into my classroom and expecting to see my brand new littles reading, writing, or adding. No eyes are batted at yet another round of centers or our sixth fifteenth brain break of the day.

Sometimes we get really caught up in practicing rules, procedures, and expectations the first week of school. While that is definitely important, it doesn’t mean you can’t get in lots of play too!

Play gets out energy, allows you to build better relationships with your students, and creates opportunities for them to form friendship and get to know each other. Combined with good expectations, more play inevitably leads to better behavior, especially during the first few weeks.

Here are some ideas for how to incorporate play into your classroom structure in the first week of school:

STEM Boxes

I loathe morning work. I tried to do away with all pointless worksheets in my classroom a long time ago, and let’s face it, traditional morning work is pretty much always a pointless worksheet.

Traditional morning work often leads to students interrupting you at the door to ask for help. Plus you inevitably have kids finish too quickly and need more work, or not finish it in the allotted time and get frustrated.

Instead of boring morning work, I now use STEM boxes as morning work. They are full of toys or items that allow the children to build or create imaginatively.

My boxes accomplish everything that makes morning work nice (keeping kids busy while allowing you to greet the rest at the door), but they also do several great things morning worksheets can’t.

They get kids excited for the school day

There is nothing more appealing to a kindergarten student than knowing play awaits them first thing in the morning! Most of my students beg to come to class early so they can work in a STEM box.

They warm up the students’ brains

Most kindergarten morning worksheets have to be incredibly simple so no students need assistance. This usually means they are incredibly pointless.

STEM boxes, on the other hand, warm up brains and get them thinking creatively! This makes for a much more engaged morning.

They can also serve as work for early finishers

I love anything that serves multiple purposes in the classroom! In the first few weeks of school, I do a lot of cutting, gluing, and writing activities to assess where my students are with those skills.

This leads to a lot of early finishers, which leads to boredom, which we all know either leads to chaos or you being asked 1,472 times “What do I do now?”

I rely on STEM boxes as my go-to activity for when students are finished.

What to put in your STEM boxes

The best part of STEM boxes is that you can practically put anything in them! For my boxes, I either put in open-ended STEM toys or supplies, or just sneak in some fine motor practice if the class seems to need that more.

I like to keep 4 options of boxes at a time. My current options are Citiblocs, these interlocking discs, these building toys, and playdough with tools.

 

 

I rotate them about once a month or when the kids start to seem bored with them.

Other things I use include:

• Cups and notecards for building
• Straws
• Popsicle sticks
• Legos
• Clothespins and containers
• Magnets and magnetic items
• Nuts and bolts
• Jumbo tweezers and various object to pick up
• Lacing cards
• Buttons and string

Brain Breaks

In my class, we talk a lot about our brains. Our brains, like our muscles, need to be exercised and warmed up.

We do a lot of “brain breaks,” which for us is code for we either need to get some energy out or refocus our brains for the next activity. Read on for some awesome brain break ideas!

GoNoodle

If you don’t already use GoNoodle, you are missing out! GoNoodle lets the class choose a character that you build up be doing brain breaks. There are fitness options, dance options, and a whole section dedicated to mindfulness!

My favorite feature of GoNoodle is the Youtube component. You can find your own videos and add the links into GoNoodle.

Just Dance

I love doing Just Dance with my kiddos at school! They get really into following the dances and they always enjoy the music.

Youtube has videos of all the just dance kids songs and dances. (Bonus: Add these into GoNoodle so you can still build up your character and you have the links on hand!)

Yoga

Yoga is magic with a rowdy class. It gives them something productive to focus their energy on.

I use yoga with all of my classes, and have ever since I taught 3-year-olds! Kids in my experience all love yoga.

The best yoga for kids that I have tried is Cosmic Kids yoga. They have a youtube channel where they do free adventures.

These are so cool! She goes through stories of popular kids movies, incorporating yoga into acting the story out. Our favorites are Star Wars and Harry Potter!

She even offers training courses for teachers on how to best teach yoga to children!

Games

Playing games with your students is super important!

It’s fun, engaging, and it builds relationships in your class. Games can also really help your shy students blossom.

Here are some game ideas for kindergarten:

The Name Plate Game

I always do this game the first day of school! Write everyone’s name on a paper plate.

The kids stand in a circle and you toss the plates out. They all try to find theirs as quickly as possible. (Nice little assessment twist…you can see who already recognizes their name!)

Captain’s Coming

This is kind of a twist on Simon Says. I have heard of many variations on this game, sometimes called Shipwrecked, over the years.

Basically, you serve as the Captain of a ship and you give commands to your pirates.

Some common ones are:

• “Captain’s Here!” (Students respond with “Aye-aye Captain” and stand at attention)
• “Swab The Deck!” (Students move around the room, pretending to clean)
• “Port!” and “Starboard!” (Students move 3 steps left or right)
• “Lighthouse!” (Students find a partner and touch hands, moving in a circle)

You can also make up your own commands! Or better yet, have the kids make some up!

Category Game

Have the students sit in a circle. Give them a category. Students go around the circle shouting out examples of the category.

Dramatic Play and Developmental Centers

Centers are a must in the kindergarten classroom. I spend the first couple of days talking about each center and modeling expectations

Then the third day I set up a rotation so everybody gets to try each center.

After that, centers are free choice in my room. I do centers in the morning before kids are rowdy or tired and I rarely have behavioral problems during center time.

Here are some of my centers:

• Home Center (kitchen, baby dolls, etc.)
• Dress-up
• Wooden Blocks
• Doctor Center
• Legos
• Puzzles
• Action Figures
• Puppet Center
• Animal and Dinosaur Figurines

I usually start with just those and add others throughout the school year!

 

Those are my suggestions for play in the first week of school! How did you incorporate play this week? Leave a comment below with your ideas!

Posted on: August 26, 2018, by : admin