Back to school can be full of paperwork, paperwork, paperwork! Today, I am going to talk about doing your back to school with technology! These back to school digital ideas and activities will make your life much easier! Let’s get digital!
Start HERE if you’re new to Google Classroom teaching.
If this is all super new to you, I wrote a blog post about Google Classroom. First, read these tips about teaching using Google Classroom. Then, head back to this website to learn how to apply all of that information to your back-to-school planning.
Link: Google Classroom Tips
Open House Ideas: Back to School Virtual Ideas
Open House is your chance to meet parents face-to-face and show them your students’ spaces. This is also your opportunity to collect information about individual students. Instead of handing your parents a stack of paperwork to fill out and keep track of, consider using digital back-to-school forms! In my BTS Forms and Worksheets, you can have digital parent and student questionnaires.
Open House/Meet the Teacher Tips:
- Distribute parent and student questionnaires digitally
- Use a Scannable QR Code or Link
- Be sure to have forms collect parent email addresses
- Have paper forms as a backup
Link: Open House and First Week Worksheets
Video Read Alouds for the Beginning of the Year
Back to school read alouds are so much fun! This is a chance for students to connect to characters, learn about school, hear how their teacher reads, etc. If you want to incorporate more read alouds, consider recording videos or finding them online. Then, you can post them to your digital platforms and students can listen to them again and again!
I have suggested read alouds below. Each of these back to school read alouds are highly engaging for a student to listen to. I have a blog post (click here) that outlines why each book is perfect for your classroom! Each of the links below are affiliate links to Amazon.
- How to Get Your Teacher Ready by Jean Reagan
- The Thing Lou Couldn’t Do by Ashley Spires
- The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson
- The Pigeon HAS to Go to School by Mo Willems
- A Tiger Tail by Mike Boldt
- My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook
- First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg
- All Are Welcome Here by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufman
- Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller
Reinforce School Rules Digitally
School rules can be tricky. We talk about them and model them throughout the first weeks of school. A fun way to reinforce these rules would be with a digital flip book where they’ll write in their rules and write about their procedures!
Link: School Rules Flip Book
Back to School Memories and Getting To Know Each Other
In a normal situation, the students would always record and reflect on their first days of school! If you want the benefits of this without all of the paperwork, consider using a digital memory book. Allow them to write about their feelings and activities in those first few days. Throughout their first two weeks, assign them a specific memory book page. That page can be about their goals, their new friends, how they feel about certain subjects, and more. It gives you a good opportunity to get them writing, while also allowing them to reflect on their feelings. I have a Back to School Memory Book that comes with both a paper copy and a digital copy, for whichever scenario you may find yourself in.
Link: Back to School Memory Book
Students will also need to get to know one another. You can incorporate digital versions of your getting to know each other activities, too! This will allow students to exchange with more than just a few new friends!
Link: All About Me
Another fun get-to-know you activity is Find Someone Who. I always have students grab a clip board and a pencil, then circulate the room. Now, do the same thing digitally! I have a free version of these Find Someone Who pages. There are two free activities for students. Or, students can describe if they match that box and their friends can type their name into the boxes. You can snag this freebie by signup up for my email list. The freebie will be sent directly to your inbox.
FREE Email Link: Find Someone Who
Virtual Back to School Suggested Products:
Throughout this blog post, I’ve mentioned several digital back-to-school products I have converted. Here are all the resources I think will help Back to School Virtual Ideas! They all come with both worksheets and digital Google Slides access. You can choose which option you want.
- Open House Forms and First Week Worksheets
- Memory Book
- Fiction Comprehension Passages
- All About Me
- School Rules Flip Book
- Back to School Flip Book
- All About Me Flip Book
Thanks for reading! I hope you walk away with tips today that will help set you up for digital success!
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