Free First Week Back to School Middle School Plans (Part 2)

Here it is! The second half to your first week of school plans (well not half, but you know what I mean).
If you haven’t read part 1, I would suggest starting here (as in clicking on here…not here on this blog). I mean, it is difficult to start at Day 3 (though it may actually be a bit easier, since those first day jitters will be all out of the way and you will know everyone by name already 🙂

First week of school: Day 3

  • Community circle: Day 3: Discuss quote of the week. (A copy of all quotes used for community circles, comes FREE with your community circle purchase.)
  • Math: Building math classroom norms using quotes (collaboration, reading comprehension, inferring, community building, plus it makes a great beginning of the year math bulletin board)
  • Cross curricular center rotations: Start centers rotations (two 40 minute rotations per day)

First Rotation –Getting to know you: Engaging interest survey (FREE, also included with community circle)

Second Rotation – Writing: 3 things you would like your teacher to know about you

Third Rotation –  Math: Share math about me pages in partners – calculate to learn about each other

Fourth Rotation – Reading: Library scavenger hunt in groups; find a book that…. (this is a TpT purchase from Little Library Learners)

Fifth Rotation – Technology: Decorate the cover of your free write journal (I will be creating this product soon to share. Stay tuned)

  • Read Aloud: Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson: Discuss our promise to each other and how important it is to ensure everyone feels included. Have students sign collaboration.

Day 4 of your first week of school

First week of school: day 5

  • Community circle: Day 5: Discuss favourite activity of the week so far)
  • Math: Watch WIM video about growth mindset (here is the link). Discuss how this relates to our math quotes discussion and what else we can learn from them.
  • Cross curricular center rotations: Continue centers (one 40 minute rotation, plus a finish up period)
  • Read Aloud: Ish by Peter Reynolds: Discuss what ‘ish’ means and how it can help us to be happy with our best.
  • Classroom setup: Begin job training for the first rotation of classroom jobs. Don’t forget to sign up for my email list on my website to receive this for FREE. 
  • Special: Teach students to play solitaire ($); this is a great activity students can do when they are finished their work or for indoor recesses (to eventually lead into double solitaire where students battle each other)


I will also be using these FREE calendar and to-do lists templates to keep myself and my students organized. What is your week 1 plan? I would love to hear it. Share your ideas on my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/1PassionateTeacher. The more we share with each other, the less nerve wracking this year is going to be.

Contact me at 1passionateteacher@gmail.com with any questions or comments. I would love to help you with your upcoming school year.