Planning your first week of school doesn’t have to be overwhelming. If you’re wondering what to teach during those first few days, you’re in the right place! After years of teaching elementary students, I’ve found that the best first week isn’t packed with academics—it’s focused on building relationships, teaching routines, and creating a positive classroom community. While these are my 2nd grade first week lesson plans, you’ll find plenty of ideas that work well in grades 1-3.

In this post, I’m sharing my complete first-week lesson plans, including:

  • Getting-to-know-you activities
  • Read-aloud books
  • Classroom expectations
  • Routines and procedures
  • Math ideas
  • Community-building games
  • FREE downloadable lesson plans

Whether you’re a new teacher or simply looking for fresh ideas, these first-week lesson plans will help you start the school year with confidence.

My Goals for the First Week of School

Every activity during the first week serves one of three purposes:

  1. Help students get to know one another.
  2. Teach classroom routines and procedures.
  3. Build positive classroom expectations from Day 1.

Once those foundations are in place, the rest of the school year becomes much easier.

My First Week of School Lesson Plans

first week of school plans

Want to save these plans?

Download the clickable version that includes links to every book and classroom resource featured in this post.

Getting to Know Your Students

Every morning starts with a morning meeting. After years of scrambling to plan one every day, I finally created a year’s worth of editable Morning Meeting slides so I could keep the routine consistent and engaging.

Each grade level has 15-20 minutes blocked out in the AM for morning meeting. After a year of scrambling to plan morning meeting everyday, I started working smarter instead of harder. I created these Morning Meeting slides for the entire year to keep my routine consistent and fun!

After morning meeting and special (ugh–I do not love having special first thing in the morning!), we will spend some time getting to know one another.

  • Monday: Read “How to Get Your Teacher Ready” After we read, we will answer “How room 215 got ready for school” and I will record their responses on chart paper. I kept this short because we will also squeeze in some lunch/recess practice here. The entire 2nd grade walks their class to the cafeteria to walk through the lunch routine and then we head out to recess and go over rules + let them play for a few minutes.
  • Tuesday: All About Me flipbook This usually takes a couple of days so we start it on Tuesday and fill in any other time we have to work on finishing it throughout the week.
  • Wednesday: Name + Hobby Hand Gesture game This is one of the games included in my Back to School Activities.
  • Thursday: Puzzle About Me (freebie!)
  • Friday: Back to School Scoot This is my FAVORITE way to gather a lot of information about my students. I keep these response papers and refer to them all year long!

Teach Classroom Expectations

In the next half of the morning, we will concentrate on classroom expectations. Each day, I have chosen a book to focus our discussion and an activity to help drive home the importance of each expectation. I will use some great books (links to purchase them on Amazon are in the downloadable plans) and a few resources to help me do this:

  • Monday: Read “Tony Baloney School Rules” and discuss why rules are important. Brainstorm a list of possible classroom rules
  • Tuesday: Read “Do Unto Otters” and focus on “Show Respect”
  • Wednesday: Read “What if Everybody Did That?” and focus on “Think Before You Act”
  • Thursday: Behavior Stories and focus on “Be a Problem Solver”
  • Friday: Read “The Most Magnificent Thing” and complete self-portraits while focusing on “Try Your Best”

👉 Looking for a deeper look at how I teach expectations? Read my complete guide here.

Teaching Routines & Procedures

After recess and lunch, we will have some quiet time. I might play a little music or read a poem book to settle everyone and get focused on the important stuff- ROUTINES and PROCEDURES!

You can grab this free procedures list and edit it to create a plan that works for you!

Here is the routine I use for teaching routines and procedures:

  • Explain and model the routine
  • Discuss why it’s important
  • Answer any questions about the routine
  • Ask for volunteers to model the routine or practice as a class if it is a whole-class routine

I repeat this procedure for each routine–often more than once throughout the week. If I notice students are not following the routine, that indicates that we need to review it again as a whole class.

My biggest tip?

Don’t try to teach every routine on the first day.

Instead, focus on just 2–3 routines each day and revisit them throughout the week.

First Week Math Activities

One of my favorite parts of my first week of school lesson plans is introducing our math block with hands-on activities. By the end of the week, we will have used manipulatives, discussed real world connections, and played math games which is a true preview of how math will run all year.

free math game for first week of school
  • Monday: Discuss math connections between previous learning and what we will learn this year. Let students look through math book and draw a picture of the ways math is used in our daily lives.
  • Tuesday: Math Tool Expectation Craft Day 2 for math is all about math tools, how they can be used, and what the expectations are for using them. We use several activities from my Math Toolbox resource to practice using our math tools correctly.
  • Wednesday: Math tool explorations/finish craft: This is one of my favorite days! I pull out 5-6 different math tools (base-10 blocks, dominoes, geoboards, counting cubes etc) and we have some free exploration time.
  • Thursday: Introduce Fast Fact Folders which is our fact fluency routine.
  • Friday: Play Trash Can Math (pictured above) This is my favorite back to school math game. You can read all about how to play by clicking the link.

Helping Students Learn Classmates’ Names

first week plans freebie

One of my lofty goals for the week is for ALL of my students to learn one another’s names. In the past, I didn’t realize how important it was until it was over a month into school and students were pointing instead of using names. So now I make sure to intentionally choose activities in my first week of school lesson plans that provide ample opportunities to practice.

  • Monday: We play the 4 corners game. I love getting them up and moving around the room after a long day!
  • Tuesday: First week of school scoot
  • Wednesday: Name + Hobby + Hand Gesture activity
  • Thursday: Back to School trivia game
  • Friday: STEM paper chain activity

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I teach the first week of school?

The first week should focus on classroom community, routines, expectations, and relationship building before diving into rigorous academics.

Should I start curriculum during the first week?

I like introducing small pieces of our curriculum while keeping the primary focus on classroom culture and procedures.

How many routines should I teach each day?

I recommend introducing just 2–3 routines daily so students have time to practice and build confidence.

With the first day of school just around the corner, I hope these ideas help you start the year feeling prepared and confident. I hope these ideas and activities for back to school will help get off to a great start and keep your students engaged and excited about learning! Don’t forget to download the first week of school lesson plans here to learn more about any activities mentioned in the post.

back to school lesson plans

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