I am only a little over 24 hours away from my first day back and I’m SO excited to get started. I was able to meet 18 out of the 28 students and parents I’ll have this year. I was honestly OVERWHELMED with how much support and love they all were already showing. I think its going to be a fantastic year!! So of course this means I’m blowing the dust off of my Back to School binder with all of my favorite ‘go to’ games, activities and most importantly – BOOKS!! Back to school themed books are some of my favorite ones to read all year. Above all, First Day Jitters. Classic!! So today I bring you…
Myself and other amazing bloggers would love to share our favorite of the favorite Back to School books and with that maybe.. a freebie!!
So there are so many amazing discussions that come from reading this book. The biggest of course is ‘Did you know that Sarah Hartwell was a teacher?’ and ‘How did the author conceal the fact that she was a teacher?’ But something I love to do to help put a positive spin on the book is have the students change the ending. Yes its an adorable story about being nervous on the first day of school and we always talk about the fact that those feelings are completely natural, etc. But I want to make sure I end on a positive note in aide to try and relieve some of the jitters my students might be having.
So with this I have the students recreate the story with a positive twist. Same characters, same setting, and they even have the challenge of trying to recreate the allusion that Sarah is a student – but this time she’s EXCITED to go to school. How would the story change? The students get to choose a word to change the title. Example: First Day Delights Then its simple (duh, its the first day of school!) They brainstorm, plan out their writing, and write!! I love doing this too because it lets me see how they are as writers and I get to know them so much better. We always share out our stories when we’re done and talk about how we’re going to make our own story by having the best first day we can!
If you want to try the activity, please feel free to download it by clicking the photo above! And definitely make sure to check out the other Back to School Book Favorites these authors have! Happy Back to School!!
