Caitie's Classroom

First Day Of School

Welcome to the classroom! We love to play, learn, create and sing together in the classroom, and we’d like to encourage our classroom friends to keep learning and playing at home once Caitie’s Classroom is over. We’ve put together activities and resources so the playing, learning, creating and singing doesn’t have to stop once Caitie says goodbye. Try these out at home or in your own classroom, and have fun!

In this episode of Caitie’s Classroom, we are getting ready for our first day at school! School is an exciting place to be, with lots of new things to learn and discover. Below are some helpful resources so you can try out some of the activities from the classroom at home, as well as some new ideas for more learning and playing with a school theme at home or in a classroom.

First Day Of School

My Backpack

Caitie is packing her backpack to get ready for school! This is a great starting point for imaginative play, and can spark lots of great conversation to practice vocabulary and critical thinking.

  • Ask your little ones what they have in their backpack. Take a look through their backpack together and ask them about each item.
  • Ask them about the backpack itself – Caitie’s backpack is purple and yellow with stars. What color is yours? Are there any shapes on it, or other things?
  • Try playing school at home and start by packing a backpack with things that you can use throughout the game.
  • It’s great to have a backpack ready to go in the morning before school. What are some other things we might need to do to get ready for school in the morning?

How To Get To School

Caitie talks about different ways to get to school: walking, riding a bike, driving or taking a bus.

  • Ask your students how they get to school. Ask which way might be the fastest or slowest. Try some critical thinking questions – why one person might drive to school, why one person might walk.
  • Try out the different movements Caitie does as she pretends to go to school. Play Simon Says with the different movements – Simon Says ride your bike! Simon Says walk!
  • You can play Red Light Green Light with those movements as well. This is especially fun if you are pretending to drive a car. Try having your students move in a circle and call ‘red light’ for them to freeze, and ‘green light’ for them to go! You can also call ‘switch’ or ‘u-turn’ when you want them to change directions.

Car Mat Activity

First Day Of School

  • Try making your own car mat picture on a large sheet of paper. Ask your little ones about different things that can go on the car mat. Take a walk or drive around the neighborhood to get ideas.
  • Make your own car mat with different colored houses for color review.
  • You can do a similar activity without making a car mat. Put some stuffed animals or dolls around the house and pretend to be a bus, walking from bus stop to bus stop and collecting the stuffed animals to take to school.

ABCs

In this episode we play ABC Star! You can recreate this game at home by writing out each letter of the alphabet on a piece of paper and laying them out. Then replace some of the letters with stars. Follow along and sing the song with your little one!

First Day Of School

Tobee!

First Day Of School

In this episode we get a special phone call from our friend Tobee! Watch more videos with Tobee here: Sing Along With Tobee

First Day Of School Photos

Craft – School Bus Picture Frame

First Day of School

  • Here is an easy to follow step by step breakdown of the school bus picture frame we made in the classroom: School Bus Picture Frame
  • This craft is a great way to get little ones excited for their first day of school. Try making the frame first so they are excited about taking a photo to put inside it.
  • Try changing the photos you put inside the frame. You can put a picture of the new things your child is learning or working on to keep them motivated and excited. Or put in a picture of anything at all, the world is your classroom!

Wheels on The Bus

Counting Practice

In this episode we practice counting the fish in the fish tank. You can practice counting by counting different things all around you.

School of Fish

First Day Of School

In this episode we learn that a group of fish is called a school. Learn what other groups of animals are called with your little ones. A list can easily be found on the internet. Some of our favorites are a murder of crow, a caravan of camels, an army of frogs and a pride of lions.

Discovery Bin

First Day Of School

  • You can make your own discovery bin to practice shapes, colors, numbers, letters – anything at all! Place the items in a discovery bin filled with sensory materials, search to find it and identify it.
  • You can pretend your whole playroom or classroom is a discovery bin. Look around the room for shapes, colors, numbers and letters. Then count how many you have found. Ask your little ones how many circles they can find, etc.

We hope you have fun singing, playing, learning, and creating! We love to see photos of our friends having fun in the classroom and of their wonderful creations! You can share them with us a few different ways:

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