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Activities for First Day Jitters

Engaging Activities for First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg

Back to School Snack

Kick Off the Year with a Tasty Tradition: Back to School Snack in a Cup!

classroom routines for back to school

Top 5 Back to School Classroom Routines

Peanut Butter and Cupcake: a Friendship Read Aloud for Back to School

friendship in a cup

Back to School with Friendship in a Cup

Top 5 Back to School Read Alouds

Back to School Anxiety Making a Plan due to Covid

A Little Spot of Kindness activity

Kindness Activities with A Little Spot of Kindness

My Top 5 First Day of School Activities {with freebies}

First Week of School with Rules and Routines

Back to School ~ First Week of 1st Grade

A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words…Back to School “Homey” Theme

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10OTH DAY 🎉🎉 100th Day of School is one of my FAVO

10OTH DAY
🎉🎉 100th Day of School is one of my FAVORITE days of the year! 🎉🎉 If you’re looking for a way to make this milestone meaningful, fun, and packed with learning — a 100th Day Theme Day might be just what you need!

During this special day, students rotate through activities that celebrate the number 100 while practicing real math skills, reading, writing, and teamwork. There are centers, crafts, a snack, a door banner, and so many hands-on ways to keep students engaged and moving. We dress up, count collections, build, estimate, write, and create keepsakes that families adore. It’s a day students talk about for the rest of the year!

Whether you run it as centers, whole-group rotations, or sprinkle activities throughout the day — everything is ready to go and teacher-friendly so you can enjoy the celebration right along with your students. 💛

✨ And guess what?! If your students loved the 100th Day, I also have a themed day for the 120th Day of School to keep the fun going later in the year!

👇 Comment “100” or “120” and I’ll send you the link! 🎉📎

“This is a great resource for the 100th day of school. I used this as different stations/activities for them to do during the day and they loved it! It is a great way to celebrate the 100th day while still doing educational activities that are fun and engaging.”

“We are so excited to celebrate 120th day! It is such a fun day. This resource made planning and organizing so much fun! It kept the students engaged and excited all day. Thank you for a great resource for students to learn along with having fun!”

“Your products are top notch and this one is no exception! Thank you so much!”

Did you have a snow day today? We did here in Ohio

Did you have a snow day today? We did here in Ohio.

During Snow Day, your class will read snowy stories, complete comprehension activities, make crafts, and enjoy a fun snack + poem + centers. There’s even a mini book to teach students How to Build a Snowman followed by writing + sequencing!

From phonics to math games to catching-snowflakes crafts — this day is FUN, purposeful, and hands-on. Run as centers or whole group… the choices are endless!
Perfect for keeping engagement high and chaos low 😉☃️
 ❄️❄️❄️Comment Snow and I’ll send you the link!
 #ElementaryTeachers #WinterThemeDay #FirstGradeFun #SnowDayActivities #FirstGradeRoars

❄️⛷ Get ready for a winter competition your studen

❄️⛷ Get ready for a winter competition your students will LOVE! The Big Snowdown by Katy Hudson is the perfect read aloud for January & February—especially with the Winter Olympics coming up!

Owl is convinced she’ll win every event without practicing… until her friends beat her fair and square! The message about effort, perseverance, and practice makes this story such a great SEL tie-in for winter. 🌟

This companion is packed with comprehension activities, sequencing, writing, vocabulary, math games, an owl craft, and so much more!
📚 I love Katy Hudson’s books SO much that I added them to an Author Study Bundle featuring all her woodland character stories — and that bundle is also on sale!
➡️ Both are 20% off right now!
 Comment “snow” and I will send you the links.

❄️ Practice makes progress! ❄️

#WinterReadAloud #GrowthMindset #WinterOlympics2026 #ReadingComprehension #FirstGradeRoars

Ready for Groundhog Day FUN in your classroom? 🦫✨ 

Ready for Groundhog Day FUN in your classroom? 🦫✨ This pack is filled with everything you need to teach this quirky little holiday through fiction + nonfiction activities your students will LOVE!

Students learn all about Groundhog Day with an engaging mini reader, then dive into predicting, graphing, and finding out if the groundhog sees his shadow! From Gregory’s Shadow to Wake Up, Groundhog!, they’ll practice loads of comprehension strategies across multiple picture books. Plus writing, word work, graphing… and an adorable Groundhog in Pajamas craft! ☀️❄️
Perfect for centers, whole group, small groups, or a festive theme day!

👉 Comment Groundhog and I will send you the link!

#GroundhogDayActivities #PrimaryTeachers #FirstGradeRoars #TeacherLife #FebruaryFun

🎲✨ Make decoding practice FUN and meaningful with

🎲✨ Make decoding practice FUN and meaningful with these 84 no-prep Roll, Decode, Trace & Color games! Students roll a die, trace the word, decode the word, and then color it based on whether it is a real word or a nonsense word. This simple routine encourages true decoding—not guessing—and strengthens phoneme–grapheme connections for orthographic mapping.
These are perfect for literacy centers, small groups, independent practice, morning work, homework, RTI, intervention, or send-home skill bags. Just print & go!

Grab them soon — 20% off for 24 hours! 🎉 Comment phonics, game, or decode for the link!
#ScienceOfReading #DecodablePractice #FirstGradeRoars #PhonicsCenters #StructuredLiteracy

🧠 Why Real & Nonsense Word Practice Matters
This format supports the Science of Reading by helping students: ✔ Apply phonics patterns to unfamiliar words ✔ Strengthen decoding & blending skills ✔ Reduce visual guessing habits ✔ Build automaticity & fluency ✔ Map phonics patterns for future reading and spelling ✔ Generalize skills to real texts
Students LOVE the game-like approach — teachers love the targeted practice!

✨ Perfect For: ✔ Literacy centers ✔ Small group instruction ✔ Independent work ✔ Morning tubs ✔ Intervention & RTI ✔ Fast finishers ✔ Take-home decoding practice ✔ Phonics skill checks ✔ Sub plans

✨ Bonus Features: ⭐ No prep — just print & play ⭐ Highly decodable & skill-aligned ⭐ Reinforces decoding AND meaning ⭐ Supports orthographic mapping ⭐ Great for structured literacy classrooms ⭐ Works beautifully with SoR + UFLI sequences

❄️🐧🐻‍❄️ One of our very favorite January activitie

❄️🐧🐻‍❄️ One of our very favorite January activities! 🐧🐻‍❄️❄️

Every January we dive into winter animals, and by far the most engaging wrap-up is comparing and contrasting polar bears and penguins! After spending a week learning about each nonfiction animal, we come together, grab some bulletin board paper, and create collaborative posters to present to the class. The kids LOVE it — and the collaboration pieces always shine! ✨

If you teach about penguins and polar bears, why not compare and contrast the two? This unit was created for just that purpose! Inside you’ll get a nonfiction book featuring both animals with real photos, plus a color version you can project. It covers animal group, habitat, diet, babies, and body parts… and also includes a table of contents and glossary so you can guide your students through nonfiction text features.

👉 Comment “polar” “compare” or “fun” and I will send you the link

#polaranimals #winterlearning #informationaltext #nonfictionforkids #firstgraderoars

“This was an amazing resource for my 1st graders! I loved that it came with passages that I was able to print and they could refer back to, take notes and check their spelling!”

“This was a fantastic mini-unit I used with my students! It was engaging and a nice change of routine for us. It also covered so many of our standards I was trying to assess like writing an opinion based paragraph, a paragraph with facts and details, comparing and contrasting, it even has some opportunities for graphing!”

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