Learning to be a teacher – the journey from school to classroom

I found this really cute activity for the first day of school and I wanted to share it here. I did not come up with this idea but have seen it a few places and think it’s adorable.

The activity starts out with a read aloud of the book, The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. The Kissing Hand is about a young raccoon named Chester who does not want to go to school but would rather stay at home with his mother. His mother tells her son that she has a wonderful secret that will make his time at school “warm and cozy” just like his days at home. The secret involves Chester’s mother kissing his palm and telling him to press his hand to his cheek whenever he is sad or lonely and Chester quickly learns the power of that kiss. This wonderful story can help sooth the nerves of our young students during their first day of school.

After reading the book you can have a discussion with the class about being nervous for the first day of school… this is a good time to let them in on a little secret which is that teachers are nervous too!

After the class discussion there are fun art activities you can do as well. I’ve seen a few ideas but the one I like best is having the children make a handprint in red and then on another piece of paper draw a picture of their family. Then you staple to the two together and have them glue a heart in the middle of the hand. This is a great present for their families after the first day of school. Another cute idea is to have hand shaped cookies made and let students put Hershey’s kisses in the palm. Of course please make sure your school allows you to serve students food and make sure there are no allergies!