The Most Popular 21 Back to School Activities

When it is time to head back to school, kids might need some easy steps to adjust to a new school year after spending most of their time at home. So since the school season is just around the corner, it is time to prepare some fun, back to school activities for your students.

Back to school activities are essential for grade students. When it is organized well, it can be great ice breaker between kids, teach students about classroom management, and support their social emotional learning. Most importantly, back to school activities foster kids' school engagement for a successful year.

If you are looking for the best back to school activities, you’re in luck! We’ve got you covered with fresh content about the most beneficial fun things to do with kids as back to school activities!

Whether you are a teacher or parent, this blog will be your partner in crime to help your kids prepare for the new school year. Buckle up; we are starting!

Entertaining Back to School Activities for Kindergarten

The first days of kindergarten are critical to kids feeling comfortable at school, enjoying classroom activities, and building relationships with their peers.

Hands-on and engaging back to school activities support kids' social development, help familiarize themselves with school concepts, and improve their kindergarten skills.

So if you want your kids to keep up with school time, you should organize some fun back to school activities for toddlers. Spending time with beneficial back to school activities will reap amazing benefits all year round.

Now, let’s discover the best back to school activities for your kindergarteners.

1. Tell Me Your Name Game

This activity, which is one of the best group games for kids, fits perfectly to help kindergarten students get to know each other and test their spelling skills at the same time.

All you need to do is create an alphabet sheet and assign specific moves and actions for each letter. Then, ask kids to spell their names with these actions.

For example, for the letter A, kids can jump two times. With this, they can explain their names and spell out their full names by completing the given activities.

2. Passing the Ball

Passing the ball is a great first day at school activity for kindergartners as it contributes to kids' teamwork skills and helps them build friendships easily.

To do these kinds of fun balance exercises for kids, all you need is a soft ball that kids can throw from one to another. The only rule is that they should say the name of the classmate to which they are throwing the ball.

By playing this game that includes effective strength exercises for kids, children can feel more confident, comfortable, and safe in their friends’ presence.

3.All About Me Caterpillar

This fun caterpillar activity helps kindergartners share their personalities and interests in a fun way.

The activity is simple: each kid receives a paper caterpillar and glues their photo on the first one. Then, they write down their name, favorite color, food, game, and animal.

After the kids are finished with their caterpillars, you can collect them and hang them on a bulletin board so they can check whenever they want.

4. Alphabet Activities

Alphabet activities, like letter sorting with sticky notes and making sensory ABC bags, are a great way to test kindergartners’ early literacy skills.

Also, alphabet activities boost kids' confidence as they are not too challenging or intimidating.

At home or in the classroom, having alphabet activities is a great alternative to boost kids' early literacy skills or maybe even teach them about some sight words.

5. Math Back to School Activities

Improving early math skills is essential for providing kids with a successful future. Thus, for kindergartners, math back to school activities are a must for the first weeks of school.

You should try fun math back to school activities, like catching a math ball, math board games, number dances, online math activities, or fun math printables, to not overwhelm them and instead foster their interest in math.

6. Back to School Group Activities

Group activities help kids build trust in their friends, encourage them to work well as a team, and improve their social skills.

There are a lot of back-to-school group activities and games for kindergartners to have fun and stimulate their skills at the same time, like the duck, duck goose, musical chairs, Simon Says, Row Your Boat, or Back to School Get to Know You activities and games. Also, you can use would you rather questions for kids or never have i ever questions for kids to make the group activity more interesting.

7. Back to School Craft Activities

Especially in the first days of preschool, you might need additional support for helping your kids get used to school and spending time with their friends.

So including arts and crafts activities, like zig-zag calculators with stickers, crafted stress balls, or stamping activities, is a great way to encourage kids to participate in class activities.

To help them overcome stress factors of school or classroom activities, you should support them with not only arts and crafts projects but also with safe and educational back-to-school activities and games.

Favorite Back to School Activities for Elementary Students

Supporting kids’ reading and math skills, as well as social skills, is essential for elementary grades. Thus, elementary grade back to school activities should contribute to kids' social skills and provide them with a positive school experience.

Below, we’ve listed the top back to school activities for elementary students. These activities will be their favorites and will help them improve their learning skills and build stronger friendships with their classmates.

8. Printable Back to School Activities

As part of a holistic educational approach, printable activities stimulate fun learning for kids and help teachers make more engaging learning plans. Thus, providing kids with printable back-to-school activities in the first weeks of school is a great way to gauge their skills.

You can go with printable back-to-school activities like All About Me papers, printable puzzles, drawing, writing prompts for kids, math worksheets, or coloring sheets.

9. MentalUP

Including MentalUP activities and games in back-to-school activity plans is a great way to satisfy elementary-level kids' academic needs and provide them with beneficial and educational content.

MentalUP includes a variety of activities and games for every grade level. Regardless of your kids’ age or grade level, you can find a great number of educational activities to boost their skills and meet their needs. Also, you can use this certified app as one of the best extracurricular activities for kids.

The MentalUP app tests kids’ learning skills like memory, logical thinking, attention, creativity, problem-solving, and many more in an entertaining way. In addition to that, it offers a personalized exercise program including suitable activities and games for boosting kids' cognitive skills.

10. Friend Wanted Ads

The friend wanted ads are a perfect activity for helping kids build new and better relationships with their friends at the beginning of the school year.

This simple yet beneficial activity is one of the best first day back to school activities, and it is all about asking kids to write down what they are looking for in a friend and putting their answer sheets on a bulletin board.

The activity enables kids to post their ideas anonymously, and it allows them to approach new friendships without any judgment.

11. Back to School Social Emotional Learning Activities

Social-emotional learning activities help kids deal with challenging situations, cope with being in a different environment, and develop positive relationships with their peers and beyond.

Back to school social emotional learning activities are also social developmental co-curricular activities. These include learning competencies, such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

To provide these essential skills for elementary-level kids, you can choose from back to school social emotional learning activities like daily greetings, classroom helpers, smart goal-setting activities, school craft activities, student check-ins, and icebreaker games.

12. Personalized Plates

Personalized plates are one of the favorite back-to-school activities for elementary kids. This simple yet educational game is one of the best back-to-school, get-to-know-you activities.

The activity is simple: you should only have your students describe themselves in a short word they can use as their own license plate.

Then encourage them to decorate their plates to express their personality.

13. Icebreaker Bingo

Icebreaker bingo can be one of the best icebreakers in your classroom and help kids have fun getting to know your process.

Icebreaker bingo is one of the most great classroom games for encouraging kids to learn more about each other. The game cards include personal questions and prompt related to students.

The process is simple: students must talk to other players and mark the square with the name of another player who fits the description.

You can use free printables to create your bingo and customize them according to students' needs and interests. You can also include fun and interesting facts in the bingo games.

The Best Back to School Activities for Middle School

Emphasizing community and learning is essential during middle school education. Thus, back to school middle school activities should be beneficial in establishing a great classroom community and encouraging kids to celebrate and understand each other.

By practicing these best back to school activities for middle school students, you can help them bond and create a classroom culture where they feel comfortable and ready to learn.

14. Your Face Tells Your Story Activity

This is both a fun and creative back-to-school activity for middle school students. All you need to do is hand your students some templates and ask them to fill out those face templates according to their interests, aspirations, and ideas. Then you can let them talk about the end face designs.

As an arts-in-education activity, “your face tells the story” lets kids experience visual storytelling and expand their imagination.

The activity is beneficial in helping kids express themselves better, get to know each other, and advance their artistic skills.

15. Memory Games

Back-to-school-themed memory games are great welcome back to school activities for middle school students.

To boost your kids’ memory, concentration, and logical thinking skills, you can go with printable memory games, storytelling memory games, or missing item memory games.

16. Time Capsule

This is a great first day at school activity for middle schoolers. The alternative, which is also one of the most effective STEM activities for kids, is simple yet it encourages kids to use teamwork and contributes to their creativity.

You should create a time capsule for your class and ask students to fill it with the papers they wrote about the future. You can take the time capsule out at the start of next year, which is also a great back-to-school activity.

The time capsule creates a shared memorable moment for students, helping them recognize their classmates as a whole team sharing similar experiences and moments. Also, seeing all the things achieved through a year motivates students.

17. Two Truths and a Lie

This is one of the best back to school getting to know you activities for middle school students as it encourages them to get in a conversation with each other and practices their logical thinking skills.

To start the activity, you can divide students into two groups. One person tells the other group three things about themselves, and only two of them are true.

The other group tries to guess and have a conversation about the truths or lies.

Fun Back to School Activities for High School Students

For having a successful school year with high schoolers, it is essential to establish some rules, set the tone, and help them build better relationships from the beginning of the year.

Before getting them busy with meeting curriculum tasks, you can welcome them with engaging back to school activities for high school students and foster their interest in school tasks.

Below, we’ve listed the best back to school activities for high school students. You can benefit from this list and even be more creative with it!

18. Back to School Science Activities

High school is an important stage for kids to practice their math and science skills. Thus, starting the year with a back-to-school science activity is a great idea.

Science back to school activities, like a science scavenger hunt, volcano experiments, building robots, and science stations, are great for inspiring creativity, logical thinking, and science skills.

Also, it is a great way to teach kids about collaborating with others and working as a team while helping them practice their observational, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills.

19. Letter to Yourself

This is one of the most introspective back to school activities for high schoolers. Inviting kids to write a letter for their future selves contributes to their imagination and self-awareness.

All you need to do is provide them with some questions about what they’re wearing, who their best friend is, and what they achieved last year, and let them finish the rest of the letter.

The activity will motivate your students for the next year and help them understand their goals and needs better. So it is great for fostering kids' motivation for a successful year.

20. Pop Culture Quiz

A pop culture quiz is a great way to take a break from the first school day stress and create an entertaining class experience for high school students. But it can be also useful as a brain break for kids anytime!

You can start the competition by creating 15 questions about current pop culture like movies, TV shows, and songs.

Then, divide the class into multiple teams and explain the rules like timing, points, and score limit.

21. Anonymous Responses

“Anonymous responses” is one of the best back-to-school activities to support high schoolers' stress management skills.

To build a sense of community and improve students’ stress management skills, start this activity by preparing questions such as, “What makes you most nervous about the new school year?” or “What is your biggest goal this school year?”.

Then, ask them to answer these quotations anonymously in the given papers. After five minutes, you can collect the papers and put them on a bulletin board. Seeing other students’ answers can help them to feel more confident and relieved.

Why Should You Use Welcome Back to School Activities?

As stated below, back to school activities are essential for all students as it makes the adaptation process easier for them. Thus, the back the school activities that we’ve shared are highly effective and essential for grade students.

In addition to helping students adjust to attending school, back to school activities contributes to kids in many ways:

• Builds a strong classroom atmosphere
• Support kids' teamwork skills
• Helps kids discover their math, science, literature, language, and English skills
• Enables them to build better relationships through social-emotional activities
• Improves their stress management skills

All of these activities are designed to contribute to kids' mental and physical development as well as their academic skills. Also, you can always support these alternatives with fun after-school activities for kids.