Sneak Preview ~ Activities to Share With Students Before Class Begins

Do you like to send a welcome letter to your students before class begins? Here are some mini-projects and unique activities you can include with your letter to give students a preview of what’s ahead!

BACK-TO-SCHOOL PROGRESSIVE PUZZLE / PAIRED PUZZLE

If your students enjoy puzzles as much as mine, this would be a fun way to send a welcome message! A progressive puzzle is a set of puzzles that must be solved in sequential order. The solution to the first puzzle is needed in order to solve the next puzzle, and this continues with each successive puzzle. All four puzzles can be printed on one page as two-sided copies. This back-to-school edition includes three versions of the final puzzle so that students end with (1) an inspirational quote, (2) a riddle, or (3) a rhyme. You could also give different versions of the puzzle to the students so that they have different endings! The teacher page includes an extension activity that relates to the quote and a link to Back-to-School Mad Gabs.

Another option is a paired puzzle such as this one. It can be used to unlock a challenge such as the one described below. If you solve the puzzle, the FINAL ANSWER can be used as a password to get into the challenge (here).

Finally, you might like to share this Back-to-School Hex-Doku puzzle. If you’re unfamiliar with these puzzles, you can find a video tutorial HERE.

FIRST-DAY CHALLENGE

This is a favorite back-to-school project– one that I assigned to my 4th and 5th grade GT students prior to our first day of class. I had no idea what would happen, and wow! My students and I loved it! I wrote about their projects in this blog post, “They Sure Showed Me!” You’ll find a ready-to-share slide deck explaining the assignment HERE that you can customize to suit your needs. If you’d like to create a bulletin board display like the one shown below, you might be interested in these ready-to-use Scrabble Tile letters (TPT~ $2.50). It took me a while to make them that year, so thought it would be nice to create ready-to-post letters! I’m also thinking about other ways the letter tiles can be used. That may be in a future post!

S.C.A.M.P.E.R. a SCHOOL BUS -or something else!– You and your students don’t have to have previous knowledge or understanding of this creative thinking strategy in order to use it for a back-to-school challenge. This slide show introduces S.C.A.M.P.E.R. very clearly! The challenge to students could be to S.C.A.M.P.E.R. a school bus or any school item (a yardstick would be so fun if you are also sending the progressive puzzle, which has a riddle about a yardstick!). Can you imagine what they would come up with for the bus? 😂 Your younger students could perhaps modify the item in just one way (e.g. adding things), but you could challenge older students to create a mini-poster showing their ideas for each of the strategies (substitute, combine, etc.).

S.C.A.M.P.E.R. injects creativity into any subject, and this send-ahead project could serve as a fun way to introduce or review it. Read more in this post: S.C.A.M.P.E.R. Across the Disciplines: Creative Thinking in All Subjects. You might also like to check out this free TPT product created by Terri Eichholz that incorporates S.C.A.M.P.E.R. with a back-to-school theme.

MINI-DESIGN PROJECTS

I’ve been looking for quick and fun design projects for students that you could send ahead. Here are three possibilities- all FREE. Students could bring their projects on the first day of class OR do them in class as an informal “let’s get to know each other” activity. If you want students to have more choice, you could offer several challenges on a choice board and have them pick the one that most appeals to them.

(1) NAME TAG CHALLENGE – Shared by Christine Weis, this idea was featured in Good Housekeeping and you can find an explanation of the project and how this might be used as an informal assessment at For the Love of Teachers.

(2) THE MOST MAGNIFICENT THING (TPT-free) – You’re probably familiar with the book in which the main character tries to invent something to solve a problem she has. For this project, students are asked to interview classmates, identify a problem that one classmate has, and then invent something to solve it.

The project could be modified so that students can interview a parent, a sibling, a neighbor, or anyone! It’s the first step in the design process and students could draw their invention idea, explain it in a video, or make a small model to share on the first day.

(3) WHEELING IT IN!

The video shown below is really all you need to share this design challenge from Teach Engineering’s hands-on projects. Students repurpose common materials found at home to create a vehicle that will carry and unload materials. On the first day of class, students could bring in and share their vehicles.

TeachEngineering has a list of “sprinkles,” or hands-on design challenges, most of which can be done in an hour or less. You can find them HERE.

Hopefully, this gets your creative juices going! Do you have any projects or activities you send ahead before class begins? If so, leave a comment to share it! Subscribe if you’d like to be updated when new ideas and resources are added to the site.

Wishing you well as you begin planning for a new school year! Be sure to check out the PLANNING page and HOLIDAY/ SEASONAL page for much, much more- freely shared!