On the first day back from Winter Break, I love celebrating the New Year with my students with some easy and no prep Classroom New Year’s Activities! It gives students a chance to get back into routines plus set goals for the new year! Today I’m sharing my favorite activities and ideas for celebrating New Year’s in the classroom!
You can find all of the activities I’m sharing about here! 🙂
Classroom New Year’s Activities: Morning Work
I love having a morning message pulled up on my Smart Board when students arrive in the morning! Students can read the message and see their morning work for the day! You can read more about our calm morning routine in 1st grade here!
For our Morning Work, I like to use a simple review page or coloring page! This allows students to work independently and gives me time to get organized for the day! (These could be copied back to back to keep students busy for awhile! 😉)
Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution – Reading
For reading, I like to read the book Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution! It is perfect for explaining to students what a resolution is and why we make them! We start by listening to the story and learning what a resolution is. Then we have plenty of discussion about the story using our slides! I love having students turn and talk to share their thoughts.
Finally, students work independently or with a partner on some Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution Reading Response Pages! You can find the activities and slides here!
Goal Setting New Year’s Craft – Classroom New Year’s Activities
I love doing some goal setting with my students after returning from winter break! Before students work on writing their own New Year’s Goals, I like to make some together!
We start by discussing what a goal is and why we make them. We talk about how writing our goals down makes them visible and achievable. I always show students an example page I made with my own goals. We notice that goals can be made in many different areas of our life- health, school, family, friends, etc. After sharing my goals, we brainstorm some class goals that we can work on together.
After setting our class goals and making an anchor chart together, Students work on writing their own goals for the new year. I give each student 2 banner pages:
- Page 1 has space for students to write two goals they have for the new year. I encourage students to think about different types of goals such as academic, behavior, and social.
- Page 2 has space for students to illustrate their goals.
After writing and illustrating, I give students time to color and cut out their banner.
I like to staple the 2 pages together, then hang them up around the room or in the hallway to make a class banner!
Phonics Classroom New Year’s Activities : Time to Celebrate Magic E!
For phonics, we review Magic E (a skill we worked on before break!) Students play the Time to Celebrate Magic E game with a partner. They then complete the CVC and CVCe phonics sort! I love that they can review important skills while also work independently!
New Year’s Writing Activity Bucket List
For writing, students can create a Bucket List for the Year! This will be a list of things that they can do that will fill their bucket in the New Year! We brainstorm together first, and then students work on writing their lists.
Classroom New Year’s Activities: Word Search and Color by Code
We end the day by working on two partner classroom new year’s activities: a New Year Word Search and New Year Color by Code! I let students work with a partner and choose which activity they want to do first! Students can grab their supplies and find a spot in the classroom to work together. Once they complete one activity, they can start the second!
New Year’s Crown Classroom New Year’s Activities
I also let my students color and cut out a Happy New Year crown! I staple to a sentence strip for students to wear! They think anytime they get to wear a crown is the best day ever!
I hope these classroom New Year’s Activities gave you some ideas for your classroom! For all of the No Prep Activities and slides, click here!
