Teaching Tip – First day Grids

Here is a great first day of school activity you can do with your class.

I mentioned this activity in the First Day Script, which is a very detailed lesson plan for the first day of school. I’ve used this plan, or variations of it, successfully for several years. It is very important to have the first day run smoothly and this is a great way to do it.

It’s always best to have too much planned than to have to try and stretch for time, especially for newer teachers. I like to have several activities photocopied and ready to go, just in case. This is a must for the first day of school, but also a good idea for every day thereafter. It never hurts to have a stack of photocopied worksheets ready to handout on the fly.

Download the PDF worksheet

Download the MS Word file

This worksheet is an easy one for the students to do. They simply have to think of an example for each category that starts with the letters along the left hand side of the page. There are several TV shows that start with F. I used “Flintstones” as an example but could just have easily used “Fairly Odd Parents” , “Friends” , or “Flash Forward.”

I like to give the students a certain amount of time to work independently on this task and then have them circulate around the room to share examples, and to help each other complete their grids. It helps any students who might get stuck filling in the entire grid. It also models cooperation, which is a big component of my classroom.

I hope this helps. If you have any ideas you’d like to share, please leave a comment below, or get at me on Twitter. I’d love to hear from you.

I wish you all a great first day of school!