Whew…that was a tiring First Day of Kindergarten day! 😉 Of course there will be interruptions and spontaneous situations, but I have left enough wiggle room in my day to address each unknown or unplanned situation. Students collect their things and line up to go home.

We line back up and come inside for a final story and rules/procedures that we learned today. We line up and head out to recess for 15-20 minutes. I choose someone to show us how to do it the ‘right’ way and then choose someone to show us the ‘not following rules way’. We review recess/playground rules and lining up procedures. I ring the chime and students clean up and come back to carpet. Students will go to their last station and I will finish up the last of the kissing hand handprints. We sit back down on the carpet and I read the book, The Kissing Hand. We come back to the carpet and do an alphabet action song from HeidiSongs. This is also my prep time.Īfter picking them up from specials, we review again the procedure for standing in a line and walk back to our classroom. My students will go to specials for 50 minutes now for either Art, Music, Library, PE, or Science. I take all the students for a quick bathroom and drink break. Upon picking them up, we review standing in line and bathroom rules and procedures. Students will have lunch and I will pick them up at lunch recess. The students who have home lunch will get their lunch boxes and hug them as we walk to the lunch room. I blow the whistle and help the students line up for lunch. We quickly review the recess rules and they go to play for 10 minutes. We practice this 2-3 times and walk back to the kindergarten playground. Next we line up and practice walking to the lunch room, where the lunch lady teaches the students how to walk through the line and get their lunch.

We then discuss the rules and procedures for walking to lunch, during lunch, and then lunch recess. I tell them it’s getting close to lunch time and we need to talk about rules and procedures for the lunchroom. I ring the chime and welcome my students back to the carpet. We are getting close to lunch time now, but still have time to practice walking to lunch and learning how to walk through the lunch line. (This is my temporary groupings, until I can get to know my students and assess their skills.) Students will go to a different station for this round and stay 8-10 minutes. My students were given name tags at the beginning of the day and have a colored dot, designating which group they will stay with at stations. I ring my chime and ask the students to come to the carpet and I review the rug rules quickly and we sing the criss-cross song. We spend about 8-10 minutes at this first station. This works well for me and my classroom, but do what works and feels best for you and your students. Of course every year our class sizes are different, but I try and keep the groups semi-small, with my largest group being 5 students. I include playdoh and playdoh tools, pattern blocks and pictures, puzzles, and lincoln logs. I have simple stations that do not need explanations or directions. Here is an idea of what stations look like on the first day of kindergarten. Here are some excellent “first day” books to read to your new students.Īfter the read-aloud, I tell them we get to go to stations!! Yes…I do stations on the first day of school!! I explain that we will all get a chance to go to each station, but you have to stay at your station the entire time and cannot leave your area. Click here to go to Amazon for half pencils that are perfect for teaching proper pencil grasp at the beginning of the year. Because these pencils are so short, it forces the student to use a grasp, other than the closed hand grasp. This will help me determine who needs extra assistance over the next few weeks.) Another good tip for teaching kinders proper pencil grip is to provide them with golf size pencils. I try and take note of who is struggling, who is left-handed, and who is proficient.

(Note: Of course there are many students who do not know how to use the proper grasp and have had limited exposure to writing utensils. I have found that this is the ‘perfect’ introduction to classroom tools, as it’s not too lengthy or in-depth. I read the sentence to them and each student traces the ‘key words’ and completes the dot-to-dot. Together we practice using our pencils the ‘right’ way. The students go back to their tables and I pass out the pencils.

First day of kindergarten board