|Fresh Ideas for Opening Day
Have you done the same first-day-of-school activities for years? Toss out those stale ideas! If you're looking for fresh ideas, these five lessons might fill the bill. Included: Students discover their learning strengths, create magnificent works of art, have fun following directions, more.
More Back to School Ideas
Be sure to check out our Back-to-School Archive for more activities and tips for the first days of school.
Ten fun activities for subs (and regular teachers too).
Lesson Plan of the Day
See lesson plans posted on recent days:
A puzzle race builds cooperative group work skills. (Grades K-8)
Have fun making up new words, writing definitions for them. (Grades 3-12)
Fun activity reinforces estimation, number lines, mean, median, more. (Grades K-12)
Ten strategies for creating lively debates in the classroom. (Grades 3-12)
Read slaves personal accounts of slavery; write a slave's account of freedom. (Grades 3-12)
See more Lesson Plans of the Day.
Learning Game of the Week
Read the Teacher's Mind game reinforces vocabulary, more.
Box Cars and One-Eyed Jacks Math Games With Joanne and Jane
This week: Fishing for Division Facts.
Older students and younger buddies team up for yearlong fun.
Vicki Cobbs Show-Biz Science
You can tell a person's shoe size without looking at his or her foot.
Special Activities for Back to School and More
Make a Bulletin Board Friendship Quilt
We Fit Together
A Citizenship Flag
Healthy Teeth Experiment
From the Learning Machine
Explore the coolest resources on the Web.
From the Math Machine
Time to Move is a fun Web site for teaching measurement and sorting. (Grades 1-2)
From the Science Machine
Use Energy Vampires to explore the topics of energy and electricity. (Grades 2-6)
From the Reading Machine
I Spy City reinforces vocabulary. (Grades K-4)
Teacher-Submitted Lesson Plans
Teacher Lesson #1
Use a popular children's book to alleviate first-day-of-school jitters.
Teacher Lesson #2
Game teaches number line; positive, negative numbers.
Teacher Lesson #3
Fun activity teaches importance of continuity in writing.
Teacher Lesson #4
Students write text for wordless picture books.
More Lesson Ideas
Book Report Makeover
Backpack-tivities (Homework Activities)
Technology Lesson Plans
Bulletin Boards That Teach
You Fit Right In! -- It takes every student to complete this back-to-school bulletin board puzzle.
Month of Fun: August
See some timely, fun, and educational Web resources for kids:
Matthew Henson Cloze Activity (Grades 3-5)
Presidents & Vice Presidents Matching Game (Grades 4-12)
Wacky Web Tales: Summer Reading Report (Grades 3-12)
Ramadan: Crescent Moon Coloring Page (Grades K-2)
August Word Search (Grades 3-6)
Left Handers Cloze Activity (Grades 4-8)
Science Prefixes and Suffixes Matching Game (Grades 6-12)
Just for This Month!
See our August Month of Fun, August Word Search, and August Coloring Calendar. PLUS! Create your own work sheets for this months holidays and special days.