40 Best First-Day-of-School Activities for Back-to-School 2024

After a long day of learning about seating assignments, classroom jobs and school rules, they can relax with a fun game of school-themed bingo. These adorable pictures are more fun than the normal bingo numbers.

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Some kids understand the shape of their day better when they can see it laid out for them with both words and pictures. For a first-day activity, a class can work together to make a visual schedule, deciding on and coloring in the icons for different activities. If there’s any wiggle room, maybe they can even vote on their order of their activities, too.

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How often does this happen: A kid comes home from their first day of school, and their parents are all excited to hear how it went, only to be met with a shrug and an “I don’t know” when asked what they did. With these cute books, kids can write down their favorite thing they did on the first day (and practice their letters while they’re at it).

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Students can introduce themselves to their classmates (and, helpfully, their teacher) with these apple-shaped cards. They look great all hanging together on a bulletin board.

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If teachers want to start off the year by giving their students a little gift, they can try these little notebook tags, which say, “Just a quick NOTE to say hope your year goes just WRITE.” They can encourage their students to do a little free-writing about the first day.

SHOP NOTEBOOKS

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In this activity, certain attributes are represented by specific features in a sculpture. Does a student love books? They can add a green zig-zag. Play sports? Give them a black arch. Every sculpture will be unique — just like every artist.

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A quick way for classes to get to know each other is by doing a human scavenger hunt. Kids have to find classmates with different attributes, like who is wearing brown shoes, who loves to do jigsaw puzzles, etc. You can download this template or come up with your own categories (someone who’s left-handed, can hula-hoop, can roll their tongue and so on).

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This is something kids can work on when they first sit down as other students are still arriving, or if they have extra time after they’ve completed work. The challenge is to come up with a school-related word for each letter of the alphabet, so as they look around for inspiration, they’ll familiarize themselves with the classroom.

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After the past couple of years, schools have shifted focus to include more social-emotional learning to help kids with stress and anxiety. Starting off the year with guided meditation might help them ease their first-day nerves.