Back to School Challenge
The beginning of the school year is always exciting. New supplies, new students, new opportunities to try something new. However, it’s also stressful. The first couple of weeks always end up being a blur. One of the most important things that I want to accomplish during those first couple weeks of school is a sense of community. I think it is so important to teach students how to work together successfully. We do a lot of group work during the year, so they need to learn early how to cooperate with each other. My classroom challenges provide the perfect opportunity for students to work together to complete academic challenges and earn rewards together.
What is the Back to School Challenge?
The Back to School Challenge includes 10 academic based challenges for the students to complete in small groups of 3-5 students. After each group completes one of the challenges, that group earns a Challenge Ticket. The Challenge Ticket includes a coded mystery word that the group must solve using the decoder page. The first group to complete all 10 challenges (or however many you decide to use) is the winning group. You can decide if there will be a prize for each group or not. I usually hand out something little after each group is finished. (pencils, seasonal erasers, candy, stickers, …)
Each challenge has a picture on the top left of the page. This picture matches a picture on the Challenge Ticket. This makes organization of this project very easy. The academic skills that are included in this challenge include:
-Lowercase Letters
-Numbers or Letters
-Missing Numbers
-Rhyming Words
-Counting
-Beginning Letter Sounds
-Number Order
-Fixing Sentences
-Graphing
-Illustrating Sentences
“I bought your 100th day challenge last year and it was a big hit with the kids! I’m excited to introduce this to my new group of kids the first week of school. I think it will be a great way to promote team-building and cooperation skills, while also reviewing things that they should know from kindergarten.” -Beth
If you love this challenge, you may also want to check out my other Classroom Challenges including The Christmas Challenge, Valentine’s Day Challenge, Spring Challenge, and more.
