Will you be teaching online at the beginning of the year? Starting the year with distance learning is NOT ideal. But you are a Not So Wimpy Teacher. I just know that you will find a way to connect with your students and make lemonade out of the lemons you have been given. Our team wants to help. We have been busy creating lots of fun and engaging virtual back to school activities!
This post is full of great activities for the beginning of the year. You will find free and low cost resources to help you to start the year on the right foot.
How to Use Google Classroom
Google Classroom is a great tool for teaching virtually, but Google Classroom is really new to many students and parents. It can be tough to learn new programs.
This free resource will help your students understand how to retrieve, complete and turn in their assignments. They will also learn how to check scores and teacher feedback.
It’s simple and kid-friendly (but parents will love it too).
Did I mention this resource is FREE?! Click here to grab it!
Meet the Teacher Open House Slides
I love having a Meet the Teacher night. It’s a good time to meet my students and families. It’s also fun for students to get to start exploring the classroom. I often share a presentation about basic expectations.
Meet the Teacher Open Houses will have to be on Zoom or Google Meet this year. But we can still share about ourselves, meet our students and even share a presentation.
We created a set of FREE Google Slides that you can customize for your Open House. During the virtual Open House, you can share your screen so that students and families can see.
All About Me Book
I love having students complete an All About Me book during the first week! It’s a fun keepsake for kids. (They always write the cutest things!)
I am so excited that we were able to create a virtual version of this fun back to school activity! The resource includes Google Slides that students can fill in to customize their book.
We also included some fun pages where students can learn even more about their teacher! Students will love trying to guess the fib.
After the book is completed, students can save the slides to their own computer or drive to keep. It will be fun to look at years from now.
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Brown Bag Activity
Have you ever done the back to school brown bag activity? You give kids a brown bag and they put a few things in the bag that symbolize their hobbies or things that they love. Then they do a show and tell with the class. It helps students to get to know one another.
We have created a virtual version of this activity!
Students are assigned some Google Slides where they add pictures of a few things that are important to them. They describe the items in writing.
During a class Zoom or Google Meet call, you can have students share the items that they chose! We even included a reflection slide so that students could write about some of the items their peers shared.
Fun, right?!
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Back to School Escape Room
I think this might be the most innovative resource that we have ever created! Your students will love it!
It’s filled with a mixture of strategies and problems that a variety of grade levels will be able to utilize and enjoy!
There’s 6 different lock combinations that your students will need to figure out using the given clues. (But no locks needed since everything is done in Google Slides and Forms!)
The students will read and work through the tasks to find the lock combination. Students will check their lock combination by using the Google Form. When they type in their lock combination, they’ll either move to the next lock, if correct, or they will be prompted to try again if their answer is wrong. At the end, the Google Form will congratulate them. Students will click the submit button. Through google forms, you will be able to see which students or groups completed the assignment.
Since this resource is digital, there is very little prep for you. #happydance
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Back to School Math Centers
I love centers! They are perfect for review and always more engaging than worksheets.
If you are going to be teaching virtually, you CAN still do math centers!
We have been working all summer on digital Google Slides versions of our math centers. We tackled the entire bundle, but you can always start with the Back to School Centers.
The Back to School Centers review math skills that students learned in the previous grade level. It is a great way to see what your students remember and what they still need review and support with.
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The centers are so fun! Students will be dragging, sorting, and using virtual manipulatives.
Growth Mindset Interactive Activities
We love these Growth Mindset Activities.
This resource has 5 days of lessons with audio that will help students understand how their brain works as well as help them understand what it means to have a growth mindset. Students will get to interact with the slides by manipulating digital tools, typing in responses, and reflecting on their learning.
Featured lessons:
- Day 1: The Brain AKA “The Boss”
- Day 2: Parts of the Brain
- Day 3: Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset
- Day 4: Mistakes and Famous Failures
- Day 5: Developing Grit
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Back to school time sure feels different this year. I know it’s not easy to suddenly become an online teacher, but I hope that these resources help you to get started with some fun, relationship building, and review.
Have a Not So Wimpy day,
Will you plan to do any more of the digital grammar lessons like you had done in the spring during school closures? I love all of your distance materials; they have been so helpful!
Thanks Jamie! I will use some of these for the first day of school. I was wondering how to start the year, now I know!!
I’m looking to get the digital centers. How would I make it so my whole special education class could each pick a center for their assignment? Would I use a choice board?