Plan Your First Day of Kindergarten with Less Stress

_{In this blog post: Let me help you plan out a successful first day of Kindergarten with FREE first day lesson plans, plus discover the best resources for the first week of school.}

If you’re new to teaching Kindergarten, or even if you’re not, planning for the first day of school can be overwhelming.

There’s a reason we block it out year after year!

As Kindergarten teachers, we’re pretty much running on adrenaline and the motto: If everyone has fun and makes it home safely, it was a good day.

I can’t take away the chaos of basically herding cats the first week of school, but I CAN help you write first day of Kindergarten lesson plans that will make you life a whole lot easier.

At the end of this post, you will be able to download the FREE first day of kindergarten lesson plans and all of the materials you’ll need for your first day of school!

This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Things to keep in mind

As you’re planning your first day of Kindergarten lesson plans, there are a few things you should keep in mind.

1. Over plan, but expect to not get everything done. As much time as you think something will take? It’s going to take longer. And then randomly, it will take way shorter. It’s the Kindergarten mystery!
2. Your students may have never used glue before… or scissors… or crayons… or a chair (yes, really). Plan to teach everything like it’s brand new.
3. Kindergarteners have the attention span of a puppy. Break up your day into as small of chunks as possible, with plenty of opportunities for movement.
4. Students haven’t built up their stamina yet. If you go full day, your students will most likely crash after lunch. Keep the most important things in the morning and plan a chill afternoon.

These are important things to keep in mind when planning not only the first day, but the first WEEK (or weeks) of kindergarten! It can feel like you’re getting nowhere, but trust me, you’ll be amazed at how quickly they catch on!

Now, let’s plan your first day of school.

First day of kindergarten lesson plans: Arrival

Ideally, you would have an opportunity for students to meet you, see their classroom and seat, and get a sense of where everything is before school begins. However, that isn’t always reality.

When you plan for students to arrive on the first day of school, you will want to plan to greet each student and show them where to put their things and where to sit, even if you’ve shown them before.

Because you’ll be pulled in a million different directions, you will want to plan something open-ended and low key for students to do upon arrival.

First day of school arrival ideas include:

• Morning tubs with blocks, shapes, or puzzles. I would recommend not putting out anything messy like playdough until you’ve had a chance to teach expectations.
• First day of school coloring sheets. When I go with this option, I put out tubs of old crayons until I can set expectations for how to use our crayons. You will also want a backup incase students fly through these.
• Baskets of books for students to look at. Again, choose old books that you won’t care if they get hurt. These can be in the middle of the table for students to do when they finish their coloring sheet.

As students are completing their arrival activity, you can have time to greet new students, talk with parents, take lunch and attendance, or go around and check in with tables.

When we are getting close to the end of our arrival time, I teach students our attention signal.

Your attention signal may be chimes, a doorbell, or a call and response. Whatever you choose, this will be how you get students to stop and look at you for the rest of the year, so it’s important to set this expectation as soon as possible!

Personally, I used a doorbell.

How to teach students to respond to your attention signal:

I told students, “Friends, we are going to practice. When you hear this sound, I want you to freeze like a statue and look at me.”

Then, we practiced and I really played up how fast students were freezing and looking at me.

Finally, I let them go back to their morning arrival activity. But every minute or so, I would ring the doorbell again and see if they froze and looked at me. That gave them some practice in context!

First day of kindergarten lesson plans: Coming to the carpet

When your arrival time is done, it is time to teach coming to the carpet. Remember, many of your students have never been in school before.

It is important to teach and practice your classroom expectations right away. Just like you’ll be teaching the alphabet and numbers, you’ll also be teaching how to be classroom citizens.

Before students come to the carpet, I model how to stand up, push in my chair, walk to the carpet, and sit.

Depending on your students’ previous experience, you may have to break that down further!

I let one student demonstrate how to come to the carpet and really play up how amazing they’re doing.

Then, I call one table at a time to come to the carpet.

Again, as they’re showing the expectations, over-emphasize how well they’re doing. It’s going to feel cheesy and over the top, but students live for that feedback and reassurance.

When we get to the carpet, I immediately show students our carpet expectations. These are in visual form so students know exactly what is expected of them.

For the rest of the day, and honestly, for the rest of the year, every time we’re at the carpet I review those classroom expectations and point out students who are demonstrating them.

This can be as simple as scripting, or saying exactly what you see: I see Marcus has safe hands. I see Maleek has safe hands. I see Adrianna looking at me. Etc.

Now, you will immediately have students who want to talk.

So the next expectation we go over is raising our hands.

I say: I notice that when I am talking, your voice is off. That is so helpful! When you have a question, you can raise your hand with your finger on your lips. And when I call on you, you can talk. Can you show me how to raise your hand?

Then, you can model raising your hand but also blurting out. Ask students what they noticed and let them correct you.

Finally, take note of your students’ stamina at this moment. Do you need to do a brain break or can they sit for a quick back to school read aloud?

First day of kindergarten lesson plans: bathroom procedures

By now you’ve probably had at least one bathroom emergency, so it’s a good time to teach bathroom expectations and procedures.

P.S. If your bathroom is in the hallway and not the classroom, you may want to move the hallway procedures and recess section up to this point and then go to the bathroom on the way.

When teaching bathroom expectations, you will want to think about what makes sense for your classroom.

Generally, this looks like going through each step:

1. How to check if someone else is in the bathroom.
2. Shutting the door.
3. Using the toilet and AIMING (yes, you need to go over this).
4. Wiping and WHERE to put the toilet paper (again, yes, you need to go over this).
5. Flushing the toilet and WHY it’s important.
6. Washing hands.

It’s a lot and most likely you’ll need to review this every day for awhile. Believe it or not, you will probably have at least one student who has never used the bathroom without support before, so it is a learning experience.

Introducing Supplies: Crayons

When we start the first day of Kindergarten, I don’t have ANY supplies out at our tables. Remember, we are going to teach everything as if students have never used them before.

For our first day of kindergarten lesson plans, the first classroom supply we introduce is crayons.

We will use crayons all day every day, so it’s important that we get plenty of practice.

When introducing classroom supplies, you can follow these steps:

1. Introduce the supply and what it’s used for
2. Model how to use it and ask students what they notice
3. Model how to to use it and let students correct you
4. Let a student model how to use it
5. Let students practice on their own

We follow up our how to use crayons mini lesson with a practice coloring sheet. This is our first work of the day! Which means this is also when I show students where to put their papers if I haven’t already.

Introducing Routines: Hallway Procedures

Now my students are more than ready for recess, so it’s time for one of the most important parts of our first day of kindergarten lesson plans: hallway procedures.

I use my Hallway Ninjas as an example, but if you prefer, you can be Hallway Experts instead.

Tell students, “When we are walking in line, we have to be hallway ninjas! We do not want anyone to know that we are there, so we will be super sneaky. Watch how I line up.”

Then, model how to line up.

“I walked safely to my spot, my hands are safe, my eyes are looking ahead, and my voice is off.”

Have a student model lining up.

Then, pretend to run and “bump” into that student. Ask students what happened when you ran to the line. Explain why we need to walk safely and look ahead.

Have students line up one at a time. I don’t worry too much about lining up because we will go over that more on day two of kindergarten. Today is all about the hallway.

Now you can practice. I take students on a quick lap around the school and as they walk, I whisper about how sneaky they are being.

They LOVE it! I often hear when we get back, “No one even knew we were there!”

Teaching Procedures: Recess

It’s tempting to go straight out to recess (and depending on students’ stamina, you may need to), but I suggest coming back to the classroom and going over playground rules.

You will also want to go over the signal for lining up when recess is over.

Then you can line up again, go over hallway expectations once more, and go outside to play!

Before playing, show students the equipment they can use and where they will line up.

If possible, choose a time when no other grade levels will be outside. Otherwise, it can get confusing when and where to line up.

Teaching Procedures: Lunch

When we come back from recess, it is already time to go over lunchroom procedures. You may have time for a quick first day of school read aloud to cool down, just be mindful of the time. Remember, everything takes WAY longer than you think!

When teaching lunchroom procedures, we discuss what lunch will look like and what students can and cannot do in the lunchroom (and why).

Then, we go to the lunchroom to practice.

We practice going through the lunch line, finding our seats, pretending to eat, and throwing our food away.

The closer you can time this to your actual lunch time, the better!

If we have time, we go back to the classroom to reset and get lunchboxes. If not, we take our lunchboxes with us and then go straight to recess and lunch.

First Day of Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Writing

Once students get back from lunch, their stamina is most likely going to be dropping fast.

Having writing right after lunch is a great, low key activity to practice using those crayons again.

For our first day of school writing time, we choose a story about First Day Feelings.

Some of my favorite first day of school feelings read alouds are:

• First Day Jitters
• Pout-Pout Fish Goes to School
• Butterflies On the First Day of School
• The Pigeon HAS To Go To School
• First Day Critter Jitters
• Mae’s First Day of School

After reading, we go over some of the emotions that they might have felt that morning. I show students those emotions and point out the facial expressions.

Then, I ask students how they were feeling about coming to school. This is a good time to review raising our hands and waiting!

Finally, students complete the first day feelings writing activity. I model the activity first, and then students complete it.

Kindergarten Teacher Tip: If students are unable to write their name yet, write it with a highlighter and let them trace.

Your writing time will be much shorter than usual the first day of school! After this, you’ll want to have recess or a brain break of some sort.

Yes, it’s going to seem like you’re having breaks all of the time the first weeks of school, but students need it to build up that stamina and not burn out!

First Day of Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Math

Now, it’s time for math. Math is another subject I like to leave for the afternoon because it’s more hands-on and interactive.

This first day of school, we are going to learn how to use math manipulatives.

I go over what these tools are and why we use them.

We practice our attention signal again, and then I give students time to explore (play with) the manipulatives at their tables.

Keep this time short and sweet! You want to leave students wanting more, and not give them time to get squirrely.

If students have the stamina, you can use your attention signal to have them stop, clean up, and switch tables every 3-5 minutes or so.

End of the day

Usually our end of the day would also include science or social studies time. However, you will need extra time at the end of the day to go over pack up procedures. If you have some extra time here, you can use it to make these free first day of school crowns!

When going over the end of the day procedures, you will want to model how to pack up and where to go.

Remember, break this down into as many steps as possible and practice each one.

How to get your backpack? Check!

Where to get your papers? Check!

How to put them in your backpack? Check!

Where to go after? Check!

Then, you will want to go over where and how to line up for dismissal. This will be different for every school so you will want to plan this time accordingly.

First day of school dismissal tips

Dismissal on the first day of Kindergarten is probably the most terrifying time of the day. You thought herding 25 cats was hard? Try getting them to three different parts of the school, all on the correct bus, and all to the correct adult without losing one!

Here are my best tips for making sure Kindergarten dismissal on the first day of school goes smoothly:

TIP ONE: Create a classroom dismissal display and checklist before school even starts. Look at any paperwork and add students accordingly in a way that is easy to change. If you meet families before school starts, you can also ask them how their child will get home.

TIP TWO: Check in with families at arrival to double check how their child is getting home. Many parents have different plans for the first day of kindergarten, so ask them how their child is getting home today and how they will get home in the future.

TIP THREE: Use colored hospital bands, zip ties, or printed tags to mark students’ backpacks, wrists, or clothes. I do this when students are at specials the first day. It makes it easy for me to look and make sure that each student is where they need to be at the end of the day.

Free first day of kindergarten lesson plans

Wishing your first day of school was already planned and ready to print? You’ve got it! I have everything you need for successful first day of kindergarten lesson plans ready to download for FREE:

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First Day of Kindergarten Lesson Plans

I’ve planned out your entire first day of Kindergarten with ready to print and go lesson plans!

Send them to me!

Do you love free stuff?

First Day of Kindergarten Lesson Plans

I’ve planned out your entire first day of Kindergarten with ready to print and go lesson plans!

Tip: Once you sign up, the first day of kindergarten lesson plans will be sent to your email inbox. Make sure to use a personal email address as school district emails often block emails with outside downloads.

First week of kindergarten plans

Now your first day of kindergarten is planned, but what if you could have your entire first WEEK of kindergarten planned out for you? You know i’ve got you!

With the First Week of Kindergarten pack, you will get 5 full days of ready to go Kindergarten lesson plans to help you rock your first week of school.

This pack includes:

• First Week of Kindergarten scripted lesson plans (5 days worth) 
• Beginning of the year activities – for ALL subjects 
• Classroom management tips
• Extra printables to practice skills 
• Bonus Back to School resources like Meet the Teacher! 

What Students Will Do: 

• Practice using supplies 
• Learn classroom procedures (with visuals!) 
• Participate in math, writing, literacy, and social studies lessons 
• Learn about choices, feelings, and how to treat friends 
• Write their name 
• Write letters and numbers 
• Practice counting, colors, shapes, and matching 
• Respond to prompts with pictures 
• And MORE with extra printables! 

Ready to plan out more of your year? Check out these helpful blog posts:

• Setting up your classroom library
• Setting up your writing center
• Getting started with a classroom sensory bin
• How to use a magnets center
• How to teach lining up in Kindergarten

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