Happy New Year!

Is it just me, or does a teacher's "new year" start not in January but really in August (or July...)? I always feel so excited at the start of a new school year, and I make more resolutions, positive changes, and promises to myself at this time than on January 1st. With that, I want to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This past summer, I started this blog. I have used it is a holding space for ideas that have come to my mind as well as a place to store links to my favorite teacher blogs and resource sites, but now I plan to go full out with my own plans, ideas, and helpful hints.

This post is dedicated to the first week of school traditions I keep in my classroom and all the goodies that come with them.

1. Meet the Teacher Night
A couple of years ago, our school started doing a Meet the Teacher Night the night before school started. The kids and parents can come and drop their supplies off, see the classroom, and meet the teacher before the big day. I absolutely love this because there's no pressure to have any student work up on the walls, and there's no chance of a parent wanting to have an impromptu parent-teacher conference with you while you're trying to meet other parents. I literally know nothing about the kids, so I can't have a conference about them. It's wonderful!

As a way to make the first day of school a little more special, I leave paper and envelopes out with a sign asking parents to write an encouraging letter to their children for the first day of school. While the kids are putting their supplies in their cubbies, the parents are writing a special note and sealing it in an envelope that will be placed on the child's desk for the morning.

Not every parent/child comes to Meet the Teacher Night, so for those students, I write the note to them and give it to them the next day so that every child has a letter.

2. Welcome Back Sack
For a fun treat on the first day of school, a bright sack is on each desk when they walk in. Inside the sack is a letter from his/her parent (see above), a granola bar, and a brochure titled How to Survive 4th Grade. These brochures were written by my 4th graders last year on the last week of school. There are tips for how to  be successful, a list of my favorite things and least favorite things, highlights of the 4th grade year, and a list of what the students can expect to learn. The students enjoy reading these tips from my "alumni."

3. Time Capsules
I started this two years ago and am so glad I did. Each student receives an empty, cleaned out Pringles can. We have a free teacher store where people donate items like this, so I pick mine up in the summer. You could have parents donate these (or just eat lots and lots of Pringles!). The students fill out a survey about their likes and interests of the present time, as well as the cost of a gallon of gas (always fun to compare at the end of the year), and other fun facts. They also trace their hands and feet on a piece of paper, and I use ribbon to measure their height and cut the ribbon for them to keep in their time capsules. All of the items are put in the capsules, as well as a letter to themselves, and then they are not opened until the end of the year. The students decorate a piece of paper to wrap around the tube to cover the label. The best part is when they can open them up at the end of the year and see how much they have grown (physically and mentally) and changed over the course of one school year.

4. Classmate Connections
I found this idea on Pinterest. The students worked with a partner (chosen by me, hoping to encourage students who knew each other not to work together) to create Venn Diagrams of their similarities and differences. You can check out the original post for the download of the activity. They had a lot of fun, and we had an odd number so one lucky student got to be my partner. :-)

These are just a few of my ways to encourage my students at the beginning of the year and get the year off on the right foot. What do you do that makes the beginning of the year memorable and meaningful?