One of my most popular posts this time of year is this article about circle time activities and books for the first week of preschool. I wrote that when I was teaching 2.5-3.5-year-olds, and I wanted to create a new resource for the first week of school, more specifically for PreK teachers. In the first week of school, my main goal is to lay the foundation for a wonderful classroom community. Where we all feel seen, heard, respected, and valued. My secondary goal is to learn more about my students’ abilities and see where they are at so I can more specifically lesson plan using some elements of an emergent curriculum. These 5 circle time lessons help me do that!
5 PreK Lesson Plans & Books for The First Week of School
As I said, my focus is to lay the foundation and gain a better understanding of all my students in this first week of school. Building a community takes time. If you want more tips on how to do that, read this article about how to build a strong classroom community.
Focus on Community
Our Class Is A Family By Shannon Olsen is a great book for establishing ground rules in your classroom without resorting to a list of rules and punishments. This book exemplifies what a compassionate classroom community should be, and it’s a fantastic resource for teachers to build that foundation during storytime. ActivityAfter reading this book, I love to compare which is bigger: our class family or the family we live with. This requires a little prep, and during free choice, I meet with my students one-on-one, and we count the people in their family photos. Now, you do not need to use a family photo, but on the first day, I ask that all my students bring in one for our family photo wall. We use that for counting, and it also gives me one-on-one time to chat with each student about who is in their family and get to know them. I jot down the total, and then we pop the photo up on our families are special photo wall bulletin board. Now, at circle time, we read the book. Then, I ask my students to stand up. We count our class family members, and I write the number on the whiteboard. Next, we graph each student’s family. We discuss how all families are different, but all families are special ( and, of course, point to the now-complete bulletin board. Then I ask which has more of our class or their families. Find more books about families here..
Focus on your students’ identities
Your Name Is A Song by Jamilah Thompson is a beautiful book about the importance and significance of names. This book explores how bad it can make children and adults alike feel when someone mispronounces their name and how to handle that. Our heroine shares with her mom how her teacher can’t correctly pronounce her name and how it makes her feel; her mom gives her help and a strategy to feel empowered and turn it all around. I love this book’s inclusiveness, its celebration of names, and how it encourages children to stand up for themselves positively, especially to adults in power. This is important, and while reading it, and many many times throughout the year, as I get more familiar with my students and pet names just slip from my mouth ( I know it’s not best practice, but it happens), I always tell my students ” Is it ok I called you ( insert pet name like sweet pea)? If you don’t like it, I will not call you that. You get to choose.” and sometimes they don’t and I really make an effort and apologize when I mess up. ActivityThere are a number of name activities you can do after reading this book, but for the first week of school, I want to keep it simple and predictable, so I do a very similar activity to the previous lesson where we counted family members, only this time we are counting the letters in our names. Again, I meet with each child one-on-one during free choice, and this time, not only can I gently assess counting and start to see what letters they might know and if they recognize their own name. For the prep I write their names on sentence strips with a little extra room left at the end. I spread out all the names on a table and ask the child to find theirs so we can count how many letters they have in their name. If they struggle to find it, I don’t let them flounder long at all; we don’t want this to be frustrating. I say, “Oh, I found it!” and then we count. At circle, after we read, we graph our names!
Focus on Boundaries
Don’t Hug Doug ( he doesn’t like it) by Carrie Finison is a must-have. Absolutely. You 100% need to get this book. It is a book all about consent and how we all have differing levels of comfort with things like physical touch. My students and I dove into this book and discussed hugs and touching with or without consent. What I love about Don’t Hug Doug is that it doesn’t shame young children for liking or not liking hugs and helps teachers set the foundation in our classrooms that we ask before we hug, and we walk away without arguing if the answer is no.ActivityAfter reading this book, I like to play a game that gets pretty silly but is also a fun way to see that we all have different comfort levels and that we should respect them. I explain to my students that they should show me a thumbs up if they like the action I call out and a thumbs down if they do not! I also reiterate that our friends and classmates might have different reactions, and we respect them. Then I call out things like – Would you hug a dog? Would you pet a frog? Would you pet a cat? Would you high-five your soccer coach? Would you hug your mom? Would you hug your friend? Would you pet a horse? Would you hug a dinosaur? – keep it light but reiterate that every answer is valid and they get to decide each time if they want hugs, high fives, or no touches from a person at all.
Focus on Expectations and Friendship
Rex Wrecks It by Ben Clanton is a must-read for preschool. It is all about a little dino who can not stop himself from knocking down other people’s towers. It is a great story because it empathizes with the children on all sides of this situation. As you read it to your students, ask how it feels to have a block tower and the character’s faces knocked down. They are so sad. This will help as you progress through the year and deal with tower knocking down during free choice. It’s also good to spend time discussing how hard it is NOT to knock down a tower when it’s right in front of you. The book is an excellent look at self-regulation and resisting the temptation to do something fun.
ActivityAs you read the book, focus the children’s attention on how Rex’s classmates feel when he wrecks their towers. I invite my students to make faces just like the sad faces in the book to help make it more relevant and engaging. After reading the book ask the question: ” How would you feel if someone knocked down your block tower?” I write this on my whiteboard and then ask my students to make their faces show how they’d feel. Then ask if anyone wants to tell me with words. I add these answers to the board as well. This is a time for them to express and share as well as practice putting themselves in someone else’s shoes. For more Rex Wrecks It Activities, check out this post.
Focus on Recognizing Feelings & Empowering Students to Be Problem Solvers
The Grumpy Morning by Pamela Duncan Edwards is a hidden gem! I got it as a freebie with a Scholastic book order years ago, and I am so glad I have it; my copy is so tattered I use it so much. The book follows all the animals on a farm as they wake up hungry and very grumpy and need attention from the farmer. As a teacher, I love this book because I use it to talk about whining and demanding, as well, as usually when we feel grumpy, it’s because we need something. Ask my students if there are better ways to get what they need and remind them that it’s much easier to be a problem solver and help them be one if we can figure out problems positively. ActivityAfter reading the book, I jump up and invite my students to stand, too. We are going to play pretend in a circle. I explain that we will stay in our own spots but pretend to go for a walk. On that walk, a series of unfortunate things happen (e.g., it starts to rain, we step in mud, drop something we are carrying, etc.). Each time something happens, we stop and try to be problem solvers and fix it. After this I remind my students that they are super problem solvers and all year we are going to learn and solve problems together. This lays the foundation for me to support their independence as problem solvers all year.
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