Whether it’s a brand new class or a majority of the same students from last year, the first week of school is always stressful and seems impossible to plan. If you already work in SPED, you know that taking a week off (like for Spring Break) can throw your students’ routines off and create anxiety and behaviors. So just imagine taking a summer off, especially if your students do not have ESY (summer school).
Diving straight into academics may be tough especially if you don’t know your students’ learning styles & needs. So here are some tips and activity ideas to get your week started off right before you dive into the real stuff!
Procedures & Establish Routine
Be ready to greet your students and establish basic routines. Once a student arrives to class, staff will do a basic introduction, and then show them where they will put their backpacks, lunches, restroom, etc. If there is some downtime and a student is unfamiliar with the room, I may also show them what is in the room (eg. Here is our classroom library..etc)
Procedures will look different for each classroom or grade level but I jotted down some ideas of procedures I go over in my own classroom. Whether you have the same students year after year or not, it’s great to refresh and set expectations. Procedures for the first day of school can include morning routine, desk organization, bathroom, technology, centers/rotations, IEP goals, independent work, breaks/calm corner, class jobs, finished work, supplies, community outings, and whole group.
Teacher/Staff Introductions
Since my students are majority visual learners, I created a visual PowerPoint presentation with an introduction to who I am, what I did over the summer, my hobbies, fun facts…etc. If you have the time to prep this, also include your paraprofessionals in your powerpoint presentation!
Student Introductions
This is where you will start to get to know what type of learner your students are. Since I teach secondary sped, I like to start off by using questionnaires that apply to their transition or career planning. Kill two birds with one stone, this is a great way to get some baseline information too. From here, I can call up one student at a time to come share their information and interests, and each student can get to know each other. This is a great opportunity for students to learn each others’ names and practice their social skills by having students go around saying hi to each other.
All About Me – Student Preferences
Transition Planning & Career Interest
Transition plan surveys for the student and parents/caregivers are another great way to find out student preferences, and plans for their future leisure and work life after graduation. This will essentially be what drives your creation of IEP goals for this student, as well as the lessons you will plan for your class throughout the year. Check out my visual & differentiated Individual Transition Plan Survey HERE or on TPT, and Career Interest Inventory HERE or on TPT.
Make & Establish Classroom Rules Together
Get a giant poster board, or have a document ready to type up on your smart board. Discuss why rules are important, and give the students an example (or the first rule). From there, ask students what they think should be part of the classroom rules. Ask them what makes them frustrated, whats distracting to them…etc. This is a great way for students to realize the reasons why we have rules in place such as having quiet voices because its distracting and may hurt some people’s ears when we are too loud.
Here is a daily warm up packet that you can begin on day one! Make it part of your morning routine for students to complete each morning when they arrive. This activity is differentiated (3 levels) Life Skills Daily Warm Up packet I have for each student. Each day during independent work they can work on calendar skills (yesterday was, today is, tomorrow will be, month, day, weather), functional vocabulary, temperature, telling time, money/math, reading comprehension and community signs! It’s a nice little warm up to hit each subject without overwhelming the student. Check it out the year long Life Skills Daily Warm Up packets on TPT, and the Job SKills Daily Warm Up packets on TPT.
Birthdays
If you already have clipart/cards- have each student write or stamp their birthday/name on it, if not you can use index cards. Have the months posted on the board. From there, call out each month and ask students to come up if their birthday is that month until you go through all of the months and have everyone posted to the board. If you want to make this an academic activity, you can make a birthday graph. You can discuss with the students which month has the most birthdays, least birthdays, no birthdays…etc. To add onto this, I had my students find letters in a magazine to spell out each month. We cut & paste and created our own Month Headers. Get this freebie HERE.
Surveys/Polls
Here’s a simple and fun activity that usually everyone enjoys participating in. In its simplest form, you can put two images up on the board and ask students to vote for which one the like better (eg. MnM’s or Skittles), extend conversations about it. If you put up a variety of images, you can ask students to pick their favorite option (eg. What do you want to cook for our cooking lesson this week). Not only does this give you an opportunity to learn your student’s learning styles, but you also get the opportunity to know their interests and promote socialization.
Question of the Day
A fun free website to poll digitally is with www.classroomscreen.com this sets up a bar graph of the responses you collect from students to help them visually see which choice has more votes (see below). Check out my Vocation Question of the Day HERE or on TPT, and Independent Living Question of the Day HERE or on TPT for a whole years worth of visual questions!
Would You Rather – Daily Group Activity
Would you Rather questions are also a fun preference/discussion starter activity to do with students. Check out the Would You Rather Indepedent Living & Vocational bundle HERE or on TPT.
Preference Graphing – Weekly Group Activity
Here’s another fun preference graphing activity for students to share their preferences while also practicing some math skills! Check out the Preference Graphing activity HERE or on TPT.
Morning Routine
This goes along with establishing a daily routine in general. Have a morning routine ready to go on day one. My morning routine consists of a 5 minute stretch, reading the classroom rules, going over our daily service & work schedule, the weather, How I’m Feeling and occasionally a question of the day or survey/poll. Never want to have to plan another morning again? For more ideas on what to do in your morning routine, check out this blog or get the morning routine bundle HERE or on TPT.
Games
Don’t feel guilty about playing board games in class. Playing games are a great opportunity for taking turns, basic concepts, following directions, and a natural setting for language. The first week of school is all about building relationships! This gives you an extra opportunity to build a friendly relationship with your students before diving into the not-so-preferred stuff. Some game suggestions I have are those that require low strategy and involve high turn-taking: Go Fish, UNO, Memory Math, Connect 4, Jenga…etc.
Scrapbook or First Day of School Craft
I have my students work on a scrapbook throughout the year. So on the first week of school, I usually take their picture (maybe holding a sign with the school year), and have them create a front page with introductions. They can also craft the cover of the scrapbook. If you feel comfortable enough to go the first week, take a trip into the community to purchase your scrapbook binders and stickers for your pages.
Get all of the materials listed above plus more in this money-saving bundle HERE:
Still feeling anxious about your first week? Check out:
Thanks for reading!
