5 Creative Ways to Welcome Students Back to School

The start of school is an exciting time for both teachers and students. It’s also a week full of anxiety and anticipation. While summer memories (and nice weather) still linger, it’s important to hit the ground running to build momentum for a solid school year. This year, why not reduce stress and set high expectations with these five ways to welcome students back to school.

1. Establish Classroom Rules

Welcome your students to school by establishing a well-managed classroom. Encourage your students to help create the rules they will live by in your classroom. Getting students involved in brainstorming classroom rules not only helps break the ice at the beginning of the year, but it also encourages students to abide by the rules they’ve created.

For example, R.A.C.E. is a simple acronym that can help students remember the following rules:

R – Respect: yourself and others.
A – Attitude: always have a positive one.
C – Cooperate: and always do your best.
E – Excellence: it’s the key to success!

2. Recap Summer with a Writing Exercise

Since everyone’s brain is likely still on summer vacation, why not use that to your advantage? Encourage your students to write a story about what they did over the summer. You can start with a group brainstorm to come up with topics like family trips, books you read, movies you saw, camps you attended, states you visited, or just something new you learned over the summer. Then students can choose two or three topics to write about. It’s a great way to remember a fun summer while getting the creative juices flowing for the school year.

3. Create a Class Webpage

Create a webpage to communicate helpful information about your classroom to students and parents. NYLearns offers all users the opportunity to create custom classroom websites so teachers and administrators can display homework assignments, project due dates, classroom guidelines, class schedules, pictures, videos, and more!

4. Establish a Communication System with Parents

It is imperative to establish a clear channel of communication with your students’ parents for different situations. While important information about your classes can be displayed on your teacher website, everyone communicates differently. Consider offering text messages, emails, phone calls or even a newsletter to help parents stay up to date on their children’s work at school. Build good rapport and establish trust by communicating with parents.

5. Take the Stress Out of Curriculum Mapping

The NYLearns’ Curriculum tool allows districts to design, develop, and maintain customized curriculum maps that are aligned to NY State standards. You can customize student experiences that best serve your district, school, or classroom goals. Plus, if you need some inspiration, explore NYLearns’ nearly 100 model social studies, math, and ELA curriculum maps based on the NYS P-12 Common Core Standards.

Remember, with the NYLearns Curriculum tool, you can access all of your maps to reference any “Notes for Teaching” that were made throughout the previous school year, so you can also quickly copy curriculum maps and then modify them for this school year.

Do you have an idea about starting the school year on a high note? Let us know! You can follow us on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. As always, our award-winning help desk will be here all summer to help whenever you need it.

Welcome back! Let’s make it a great year with NYLearns!