You can also take this time to remind students about the expectations of using crayons, such as drawing only on paper and using the right amount of pressure. Some students will have had very little exposure to using crayons and writing utensils, so this gives you a chance to see which students might need some additional support. School supply procedures are especially important to practice on the first day of kindergarten so that you can dive right into hands-on learning activities! First, provide students with a simple coloring page to help them practice sharing crayons at their table groups.
Then I also introduce additional rules and procedures as we need them during the first day, such as bathroom and cafeteria procedures. You’ll want to review rules and procedures right from the first day of school! One way that I start discussing appropriate school behavior is using the “David Goes to School” read-aloud. It explains each concept in kid-friendly terms with a few pictures to help my beginning readers. It’s a powerful tool for helping my students remember the difference between the beat and the rhythm of a song.
As students come up and add their names, we repeat together that “We are so happy _ is in our class!” This is also a great way to help students start to learn the names of their classmates. Win-win My beat versus rhythm anchor chart gets a lot of use during the first music classes of the year. I like to use a pocket chart to have students add their names, one by one, under the emotion they are feeling on the first day of school.
