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Back-to-School Resources

Get ready to start the school year with confidence! This page is packed with everything you need for a smooth and successful first week, including a free first-week lesson plans, must-read blog posts, and our best back-to-school resources. Whether you’re looking for inspiration, planning tools, or ready-to-use materials, we’ve got you covered! Explore now and set the stage for your best year yet.

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Enter your email to receive FREE lesson plans for your first week of school!

Classroom Prep

  • Here are my favorite smart classroom purchases that maximize the impact of every cent you have to spend as a teacher.

    8 Types of Smart Classroom Purchases

  • These tips will help you minimize missing assignments and develop a time-saving system for organizing student work in upper elementary.

    Tips for Organizing Student Work

  • Use this bundle to prepare upper elementary emergency sub plans. Also includes practical tips to help you prepare for a guest teacher.

    Emergency Sub Plans and Guest Teacher Tips

  • These Amazon classroom favorites for teachers and students will make your teacher life easier and more organized!

    Amazon Classroom Favorites

  • low prep resources upper elementary back to school prep

    Low Prep Resources: Simple solutions that save time all year!

  • practical classroom decor tips upper elementary

    Practical Classroom Decor Tips

  • Tips for organizing your upper elementary literacy block. Includes daily routines, whole group lessons, and literacy rotations.

    Smooth Sailing Back to School Tips: Preparing for the New School Year

Prepping for the Academic Year

  • Simple upper elementary activities, lesson ideas, and book suggestions you can use to increase student engagement mid-year.

    4 Easy Activities to Increase Student Engagement

  • Learn how to integrate daily grammar practice into your routines to save valuable time and strengthen grammar skills too.

    6 Ways To Integrate Daily Grammar Practice Into Your Routines

  • Math tips and activities to start the year strong in upper elementary. Includes ideas for morning work, centers, and review.

    Math Tips To Start The Year Strong

  • Literacy tips and activities to start the year strong in upper elementary. Includes ideas for morning work, centers, and review.

    Literacy Tips To Start The Year Strong

Building Community

  • Accomplishment Animals

    Accomplishment Animals: My FAVORITE Way to Celebrate Student Successes

  • These practical strategies and resources help you build a classroom that values connection, self-awareness, and emotional growth by naturally integrating SEL.

    Naturally Integrating SEL Into Your Classroom Routines

  • Learn how to build connections and student relationships with success stickers. These have quickly become one of my favorite traditions!

    How To Build Connections and Student Relationships with Success Stickers

  • Incorporating Classroom Traditions to Build Classroom Community

    Incorporating Classroom Traditions to Build Classroom Community

  • Weekly Letter Writing to Build Community

    Weekly Letter Writing to Build Community

The First Few Weeks of School

  • One Word for Kids Goal Setting

    One Word Goal Setting for Kids: A Meaningful Back-to-School SEL Activity

  • These practical strategies and resources help you build a classroom that values connection, self-awareness, and emotional growth by naturally integrating SEL.

    Naturally Integrating SEL Into Your Classroom Routines

  • FREE first day of school lesson plans: After many first days of school over the years, here are my tried and true tips for a successful first day of school. 

    What To Teach On The First Day of School: FREE First Day of School Lesson Plans

  • 5 back-to-school activities that have a BIG impact on student learning throughout the year. Learn to cultivate a growth mindset, community, and more.

    5 Simple Back-To-School Activities That Make A BIG Impact

  • These sweet school-themed books are the perfect tools for this back to school reading lesson that introduces comparing texts and characters.

    Back to School Reading Lesson

  • Best Back to School Picture Books

    Best Back to School Picture Books

  • free first week of school lesson plans, back to school lesson plans

    Free First Week of School Plans

Building Routines

  • Accomplishment Animals

    Accomplishment Animals: My FAVORITE Way to Celebrate Student Successes

  • If you’ve ever found yourself looking around your classroom in the morning and thinking things are a little chaotic, then this post of morning work activities is for you!

    The Best Morning Work Activities

  • Working together is an important life skill that doesn’t always come naturally to our students. Here are my best tips for supporting group work.

    Tips For Supporting Group Work and Collaboration

  • Upper elementary classroom management tips. Put these essential routines in place NOW for success all year.

    Classroom Management Tips: Essential Daily Routines

  • My Three Must-Dos for Setting High Expectations in the Classroom

    My Three Must-Dos for Setting High Expectations in the Classroom

The Best Back-to-School Resources

  • Back to School Growth Mindset Cover 5945833
  • back to school getting to know you task cards
  • Back to School Math By the Numbers Cover
  • School Inference Riddle TC Cover
  • COVER Road Trip Reading Project
  • Back to School Math Logic Puzzle COVER
  • back to school logic puzzles 1
  • Back to School Context Clues Activity Cover
  • back to school inference centers 1 1
  • readers theater back to school
  • find someone who back to school 1
Sooo I’ll be the first to admit that I spent an ho Sooo I’ll be the first to admit that I spent an hour on my first day of school as a teacher making my students brainstorm a million rules — all of which were stated as “don’ts” and “nos”. 

Don’t talk while the teacher is talking. 
Don’t leave your desk messy.
Don’t get out of line. 
No running. 

Oh, how I cringe at the thought of it. 😬 💔 

Luckily, I learned from teachers who knew better and over the years, I ended up creating just ONE RULE in my classroom. I have the PERFECT book to use for the lesson, too! We still brainstorm “rules,” but the lesson looks and feels SO different now. 

💥 Comment below, and I’ll share all about how I teach just one rule every year and the book I use! 

P.S. To my 3rd graders my first year, I’m so sorry. 😭😭😭
📢 UPPER ELEMENTARY TEACHERS: Comment GRAMMAR below 📢 UPPER ELEMENTARY TEACHERS: Comment GRAMMAR below, and I’ll send you my FREE hour-long Grammar PD! ✨ Join thousands of other teachers starting their year on the right track with writing and grammar!

Inside the super short course, I’ll walk you through my five grammar non-negotiables that will help set your students up for success this school year. 🩷
Always so much to do and so little time! 👏 Comment Always so much to do and so little time! 👏 Comment below, and I’ll send you my FREE first week of school lesson plans full of activities, procedures, read Alouds, and more! 🫶 

I want our first week to be full of experiences that set the expectations for the ENTIRE year. We aren’t just “doing activities.” We are working together, practicing with supplies, learning how to transition, and getting to know each other. 🥹
🩷🩷🩷🩷Reading these responses every week brings me S 🩷🩷🩷🩷Reading these responses every week brings me SO much joy, and I learn SO much about my students… their lives outside of school, their writing style and voice, and so much more. 

✨ Leave a comment below, and I’ll send you a FREE guide to get started and a link to prewritten letter templates for the whole year! ✍️ 

Here’s how I run Weekly Letter Writing as homework:

🌟 Each full week of school, I spend a few minutes writing a letter to my students (each student gets the same letter)… In it, I talk about interesting things in my life (they LOVE this), what we are going to learn about and do that week, a character trait we’re focusing on, any interesting dates or celebrations that week, and then I always ask them a question or give them a relevant prompt (or two) to respond to me. 

They write their responses at home and drop them in my mailbox any time throughout the week. I write short responses back to them (directly on their letters) each week. 

#teacher #backtoschool #iteachtoo #teachersofinstagram #iteach
This is one of my favorite back to school activiti This is one of my favorite back to school activities that you can use all year long. 👏 Giant Scrabble has been a staple in my first month of school plans for YEARS, and last year I used the giant letters to play a human-sized version of Tapple, which was a massive hit! 

💌Comment below, and I’ll send you ready to print letters AND my free first week of school lesson plans so you can implement it during YOUR first week! 👏 

🌟 Why does this make such a great back to school experience in the classroom? 🧐 It serves as a GREAT lesson in productive struggle. It’s always amazing to see my students work through both games — and they beg for them to return all year long. 🧩 💡 We also used it as an opportunity to talk about how some students thrive under pressure while it can be intimidating for others. That doesn’t mean anyone is better than another person. 💕🩷

🌟 Details: We don’t REALLY keep score on either of the games. The point is to get them excited about overcoming obstacles and continuing a task that seems impossible or difficult. Most kids aren’t familiar with the games, so some variations and exceptions are allowed.
Like with pretty much every other expectation and Like with pretty much every other expectation and procedure, teaching kids HOW to work in groups is the key to actually getting them to work well in groups. 🩷💖 Comment below, and I’ll send you the one page version of this AND the individual letter descriptors shown here! 

The letters are from @steppintoelementary and SO cute! 🥰
💖 📕 Book Beads have easily become one of my favori 💖 📕 Book Beads have easily become one of my favorite classroom traditions for celebrating reading. 👏 I used this idea for our Battle of the Books teams, so each book was assigned a different colored bead, and once a week, students had a chance to update their necklaces. 

⭐️ Comment below, and I’ll send you ALL the info about implementing it and tons of ideas for applying it to your classroom! 

Shoutout to @lonestarclassroom for the inspiration!
We officially have our two new books for fifth gra We officially have our two new books for fifth grade Battle of the Books!! Swipe to see some other favorites on the list and the entire list (from Pikes Peak Battle of the Books — I didn’t curate this amazing list). 

I am already digging into these two new books and hoping I get to teach them this year as novel studies. 🥰 😁 There are 40 books total on the list, and they removed Kokopelli’s Flute and The Cay this year in place of these new additions.
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