In this blog post: Grab four free back to school centers for 1st grade that are perfect for the first week of school.
If you’ve taught first grade before, you know that it can be HARD to figure out what activities to put in your centers the first weeks of school!
Your students come in with a HUGE range of abilities, some fluent and reading and some who have never been to school and who still need to learn the alphabet.
Don’t worry, I’ve got you!
I have 4 fun and free back to school centers that your first grade students are going to love!
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1st Grade Back to School Centers
Grab 4 free low prep back to school centers that are perfect for the beginning of first grade!
Read more about each of the back to school centers for first grade and how to use them in your classroom.
starting centers in first grade
When you start centers in first grade, it can be tempting to jump right in. After all, your students have mostly been in school before and should know the drill, right?
Well, unfortunately, that isn’t really the case.
If you want your first grade centers to run smoothly through the year, I would give the same advice I gave for starting centers in Kindergarten – go slow to go fast!
Start introducing centers slowly and practice, practice, practice! If you are working on the routine of centers, then that is what your students should be working on.
That means, if you throw in difficult academic centers too soon, the focus shifts to that and your students aren’t able to truly learn the routine of centers.
So what types of activities should you put in your first grade beginning of the year centers?
My suggestions would be:
- Alphabet activities
- Beginning sound activities
- Magnetic letter matching
- Name centers
- Building letters with manipulatives
- Sorting activities
Yes, much of that might be too easy for your students, but it gives them a chance to ease into centers and learn the routine and procedures while feeling confident that they can do the work.
FREE first grade back to school centers
I’ve put together a set of 4 free back to school centers for first grade that your students (and you) will love! These activities are all low prep for you but high engagement for students. They cover a variety of skills so you can be sure you have something that will work for everyone.
Let’s take a closer look at these free beginning of the year centers:
Linking beginning sounds
This beginning of the year center focuses on beginning sounds. Students will identify the beginning sound and hook a link under the correct letter.
I love this center activity because it sneaks in some fine motor practice! However, if you don’t want to use links, you can swap them for clothespins and still see the fine motor benefits.
ending sounds crayons
For this first grade back to school center, students will match the crayon with the correct ending sound to the crayon box. This center is self-correcting because each puzzle is a different color.
Will that make it too easy for some students? Yes, but it allows students to be successful right away while still learning. By adding in the recording sheet, students still have to identify the ending sound, this time on paper.
school bus cvc word match
This is the most challenging beginning of the year center included! While first grade may be expected to know CVC words at the beginning of the year, this center will be a challenge for some of your students.
You can help students be successful by letting them work together to match the CVC words to the school buses. If you want to differentiate and add in an easier version of this center, you can grab the Kindergarten matching letters version here:
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Free Back to School Centers for Preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten
These back to school centers are perfect for beginning centers in preschool, pre-K, or kindergarten!
color word clip cards
We use color words a lot in first grade and it’s a big focus those first weeks of school! These clip cards will help your students practice identifying colors and color words.
Students will read the color word and then clip the color that matches. You can show students how to compare the word on the clip card to your color word posters to find a match.
Again, you can easily differentiate this back to school center for first grade by grabbing the Kindergarten version!
Grab your free back to school centers
These four free back to school centers are perfect for the beginning of the year in first grade.
Grab them here to have your first week of centers ready to go:
Do you love free stuff?
1st Grade Back to School Centers
Grab 4 free low prep back to school centers that are perfect for the beginning of first grade!
Looks like an amazing fun way to help my grandsons learn.