First Week of Kindergarten Activities

Planning for the first week of kindergarten can be a challenge. You don't know your students yet, so you also don't know their skill level or personalities. But you can take the stress out of planning for the first week of school with these hands-on, meaningful activities and assessments.

The first week of kindergarten is all about balancing getting-to-know-you activities and building relationships with procedures, routines, and fun, hands-on activities. There's so much to do, but only a limited amount of time.

As you plan, you also have to consider what's realistic for brand-new kindergarteners. 

Read on to learn about some engaging first-week kindergarten activities you can incorporate into your lesson plans.

Soft Start Activities

When your brand-new kindergarteners enter your classroom for the first week of school, they will most likely be a little nervous —they're in a totally new place with new friends and a new teacher.

Giving students “soft start activities” to begin their day is important any time of year, but especially during the first week of school. These allow students to ease into the school routine and get more comfortable before starting the day.

As you greet and connect with students one-on-one, the other students can be completing soft start activities, such as coloring pages, puzzles, tracing, name practice, building with pattern blocks or other manipulatives, or doing hands-on educational activities, such as sorting activities using math bears, plastic math cubes, or links.

Getting to Know You Activities

Building relationships with your students and creating a strong classroom community is the number one goal during the first week of school.

Incorporating getting-to-know-you activities is a great way to learn more about your students and help them get to know each other.

One idea is to play a game where students stand in a circle and pass a ball or item while the music plays. When the music stops, the student with the ball shares something, such as their name, favorite food, favorite color, game, book, etc. The game continues until all students have had a turn.

Three About Me

A fun way to involve families is to have students complete a Three About Me activity. They can bring three items from home that represent them to share with the class.

If you have a meet-the-teacher night, you can leave a Three About Me bag on their desk for them to take home, complete with their family, and return on the first day.

You can also send their Three About Me bag home on the first day of school for them to return later that week.

Another option is for students to draw three things that represent them instead of bringing items from home.

Literacy Activities

While you may not dive straight into your literacy curriculum during the first week of kindergarten, you can still incorporate literacy activities into your lessons.

• Name practice activities that encourage students to trace, write, or build their names are great for the first week. Students can use manipulatives such as magnetic letters or mini erasers to build their names.
• Read alouds are always a must, especially during the first week of school. After a read aloud, have students draw a picture showing their favorite part of the story. Encourage students to turn and talk to a neighbor to discuss the story and their favorite characters.
• Basic literacy activities, such as magnetic-letter matching mats for uppercase and lowercase letters, are an effective way to ease students into more educational activities while still keeping them first-week appropriate.

Math Activities

When it comes to planning your first week of kindergarten math activities, manipulatives are the name of the game! They keep the learning hands-on, so students stay engaged. Plus, they're super simple and don't require much (or any!) prep.

Some great options are to have students sort shapes with pattern blocks. They can sort colors with various manipulatives, such as bears, color links, math cubes, or pom-poms.

You can extend these activities by having students make a pattern with their manipulatives.

Like magnetic letter matching, students can use magnetic number matching mats.If you want to incorporate some counting activities, you can have students build math towers with cubes. 

Assessment Activities

Although you may not be conducting formal assessments during the first week of school, it is important to get an idea of your student's skill levels.

While students are doing an independent activity or having technology time, you can use assessment checklists and task card activities to assess where your students are skill-wise.

Don't stress these assessments (for you or your students). They're simply a baseline to let you know where students are and track their progress as they grow.

Rules, Procedures, and Social Skills Activities

The first week of kindergarten is all about rules, procedures, and social skills! With brand-new kindergarteners, you have to teach them the expectations and model how to do nearly everything.

They need to practice everything from handwashing and tracing to cutting, gluing, and even correctly using manipulatives like dice! Therefore, giving students meaningful activities is essential to helping them learn.

To help students get more comfortable with the school, the people, and where they'll be going throughout the day, you can complete a fun school scavenger hunt activity as a class.

You can also create a “classroom charter” together as a class. Have students brainstorm rules that need to be followed in the classroom, record the most important on a big easel pad, and have students sign it.

The goal is to make students feel as safe and welcome as possible in the school and your classroom.

By setting expectations and working on social skills, you can ensure you're doing your part to make school a safe place for them to learn and grow.

Be Prepared with Back-Up Activities

You may find that during the first week of kindergarten, activities take less time (or more time) than you anticipated. A getting to know you activity that you planned would take 30 minutes actually only took 15 minutes. Or a 15 minute activity actually took 40 minutes, and now you don't have time to complete the next activity before lunch.

It's a great idea to have time fillers, quick and easy games for times like these.

Grab these free sub plans for kindergarten and be prepared for anything. Whether it be unplanned free time, waking up with a 102 fever, or finding a flat tire in the morning.

These emergency sub plans have everything you need for anything you need. They have literacy and math activities, print and go activity mats for centers, science and social studies, and there's time fillers and games included.

These plans will keep you prepared for anything, well past the first week of kindergarten.

Fill out the form below to have them sent right to your e-mail.

First Week of Kindergarten Reminders

Don't forget to take a first-day-of-school picture of your students! Save them, add them to their memory books at the end of the year, and compare them to their last-day-of-school pictures.

Kindergarteners are wiggly, so do plenty of brain breaks, songs, and read alouds throughout the day.

Keep the activities simple. The last thing you want is for a child to feel frustrated on the first day of school because something was too hard.

As you prepare to take on the first week of kindergarten, remember to give yourself, your students, and their parents grace. This is a big adjustment for everyone. Stay positive, take care of yourself, and most of all, have fun!

If you liked the activities in this blog post, you can get them all in this First Week of Kindergarten activity pack.

For more tips and encouragement for the first week of school, check out this first week of school survival guide.