New Years Ideas for the Classroom

As I sit down to think about what I want to do with my students the first week back, I really want to make sure that I give them a good amount of time to connect their peers, but then I want them to transfer that connection point into our studies for the week. I think that the BEST learning-- in a primary setting particularly--occurs with shared experiences.  Even though our kids don't all have the same experiences over the break, we can give them time to organically discuss the similarities and differences to promote understanding and community.  Here are some things to consider when getting your students back into the swing of things after the new year.

1. Give students several organic experiences to discuss their time away.

In a primary classroom, one of the major 'disruptors' is the student's need to connect with the adult in the room.  One of the things that I try to work on with my kids is independence.  Helping them to depend more on themselves and the interaction with their peers BEFORE reaching out to me takes almost all year, but it is so worth it to have a student that is a good problem solver!

Our school just became a Thinking Maps school and so, I'm integrating these into every day type of scenarios.  Basically, the kids start with whatever will be the topic, so...Christmas Break.  In my example, you can see that my hubs, Chris and I were comparing our Christmas breaks as kids!  The things in the middle are all the ways our holidays were similar, and the things on the outside are all the things that made them different.  This is a great turn and talk type of activity!  It gives the kids a chance to work on both asking questions and answering them.  It also helps them to look for commonalities.  This is especially important with groups of kids who have difficulty getting along! They need to see how they have much more in common than not.

2. Add time into your schedule to review procedures.

We ALL need a refresher on what needs to be done sometimes!  With most of the kids being on the tired side, that first week back is a great time to take it slow and remind them of what your most basic expectations are.

A sheet like this will open up discussion on a variety of class rules and procedures. This page is in my New Years Freebie that I preview below.

3. Use literature to tie in both seasonal themes and academic objectives.

Select books to read that not only highlight the seasonal objectives of New Year, Goals, Resolutions...but choose books with characters that you can discuss.  Take the opportunity to discuss the decisions the characters made...whether good or bad.  Also talk about how the characters change throughout the story.  Need some suggestions?  Here are some from my stash that I use yearly.

I have a freebie that I use along with a goals craft each year on the first week back.  Feel free to download the printable pages!  The craft is not hard, and is a great way to have your students respond to the texts that they are reading and the thinking they are doing.

 Someone asked me what this was, so I will answer here...and then also on TPT.  It's just an organizer for resolutions.  So...for example...resolutions are...good, tricky, tough to keep.  Resolutions can make me better, help, be hard.  Resolutions will make me think, help me grow, be a good thing.  Anything like that would work...just random thoughts on resolutions is what I look for there...as we discuss.

Last year, I got tons of great feedback on these sheets.  Teachers loved them for repeated addition.  As a result, I created a whole pack of sheets that was just for addition with three digits.  If you are interested in getting more sheets like this, check out those printables HERE.

The craft is not difficult to put together.  Its' basically a clock.  The students can use the circle pieces to write their resolutions.  The clock face just has 12 dots...I found that was easier than trying to give them a clock with numbers.  Glue the bottom to the clock, and then staple the other pieces above that in layers.  Simple.