265 FREE Back to School Activities & Worksheets

FREE Back to School Worksheets

Ready to start your class off right? The first day of class is an important time for teachers and students alike - it’s the time to learn all your students’ names, set the tone for your classroom, and make sure everyone’s feeling relaxed and ready to learn. You probably don’t want to charge in with too much new material on the very first day - after all, it’s important for your students to feel relaxed around you, and around each other, so they’ll be comfortable enough to learn and produce the new ESL concepts you’ll be sharing with them. The question is, how can you help them feel relaxed?

With BusyTeacher.org’s 265 resources for the first day of school, of course! Whether you’re kicking off a class with a brand-new set of level-one ESL students, or launching a final class with a group of level-five students approaching full fluency, you’ll find resources here to break the ice and get your class laughing and talking like they’ve known each other for years.

Want to start things off as simply as possible? BusyTeacher.org has simple fill-in-the-blank worksheets that can encourage your students to share a few basic facts about themselves. Want to open with a fun game? We’ve got a wide variety of games for all ESL levels. Want to kick off your class with a funny activity that’ll get everyone laughing together? BusyTeacher.org has got you covered, with silly exercises that’ll melt even the most frigid classroom.

Whether your class if full of young kids or full-grown business English students, BusyTeacher.org’s 265 first-day-of-school worksheets offer something just right for your class. We’ve got worksheets with friendly pictures and simple vocabulary, worksheets based on popular movies and songs, exercises that let your students review what they did over the holidays, and even colorful posters to hang on your classroom wall.

All this variety comes thanks to BusyTeacher.org’s worldwide community of participating ESL teachers, who are kind enough to share the worksheets and other resources they develop in their own classrooms. Every worksheet you’ll find on this site is completely free to download, print,and use as you see fit - no registration required. But if you ever have a worksheet you’d like to share with our community, don’t hesitate to click the “Submit a worksheet” button at the bottom of this page, because we’d love to see your creation.

You can dive into our collection of first-day-of-school worksheets in a few different ways. If you’re not sure where to start, you can take a look at the top ten most popular worksheets - or search our collection using the search box at the top of this page. If you’d rather browse, you’ll see that all our worksheets can be previewed in handy “Quick View” mode, so you can get a good look at their first pages before you download them.

BusyTeacher’s 265 first-day-of-school worksheets are here whenever you need them - so don’t forget to bookmark this page, and come back whenever you need some ready-made resources for the first day of your class. And when you find something you like, just download it, print it, and use it - it’s all here for you!

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What is Back to School Season?
Back to school is a season that goes from late July into early September to prepare students for the upcoming school year. Many department stores, such as Target, Wal-Mart, and Kmart advertise back to school sales as a time when school supplies and children's and young adults' clothing goes on sale. This period of time usually lasts from mid-July through early September, before the school year starts in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. In Australia and New Zealand, this usually occurs in January.
Freebase CC-BY
Source: Back-to-School on Freebase, licensed under CC-BY
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Comic Strips

Comic Strips

Hertin Riantini
  A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. ...
1 Views 30,816 Elem
Reading comprehension - Welcome Back to School

Reading comprehension - Welcome Back to School

  The first day back to school is just around the corner! This back-to-school poem will make your child's transition that little bit easier. Students read the poem and then answer the ques ...
2 Views 22,953 Elem
School Subjects

School Subjects

BusyTeacher Contributor
Back to School,
  This PPT presentation is about school subjects, including using the preposition ON + THE DAY OF THE WEEK, REVISION OF SCHOOL SUBJECTS, and PRONUNCIATION. It also contains instructions. I ...
1 Views 8,766 Beg
Time Capsule About Me Worksheet

Time Capsule About Me Worksheet

Elizabeta
This activity can be used at the beginning of the school year with students to introduce themselves by completing the questions. All the worksheets are then put into an envelope and stored at an ...
1 Views 14,736 Elem
Welcome Unit Worksheet

Welcome Unit Worksheet

Blanca Aragón
It's never too early to start planning for next year! Matching exercises to revise personal information, months, seasons, colors, and practise asking and answering questions in pairs to activat ...
1 Views 25,644 BegElem
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The Writer's Toolbox

The Writer's Toolbox

BusyTeacher Contributor
The Writer's Toolbox is a collection of resources for students and educators that will assist in the writing process. The toolbox consists of six components: Introduction to the Essay, Selecting a ...
1 Views 12,569 All
Draw The School Object (Drawing Activity and Word Search)

Draw The School Object (Drawing Activity and Word Search)

Milena
Back to School,
So this worksheet is very easy, its very flexible, you can use it for different topics. Like the title says, they have different words, like ruler, sharpener, etc., and they have to draw them in ...
1 Views 18,882 Beg
Is it? (School Objects)

Is it? (School Objects)

Milena
Back to School,
To use this worksheet you need to print and cut pictures of school objects. It can be anything you already have seen with your class. Just put the items in a bag. For the first part of this w ...
1 Views 16,278 Beg
Classroom Vocabulary

Classroom Vocabulary

Back to School,
Can your students recognize common classroom objects? On this worksheet, students must look at the picture, and then select the classroom item that best connects with the picture. Find more themed ...
4 Views 33,508 BegElem
Back to School Plurals

Back to School Plurals

, Back to School
With this worksheet, students can practice writing plural nouns and learn words for common back-to-school objects. Students must look at the picture, and then select the correct form of the plural ...
6 Views 25,144 ElemInt
Back to School Word and Picture Matching

Back to School Word and Picture Matching

Back to School,
Teach students words related to going back to school with this Back to School Word and Picture Matching Worksheet. Students must draw a line to match each picture with the word that represents it. ...
4 Views 23,903 ElemPre-IntInt
School Rules and Commands

School Rules and Commands

Veronika
This worksheet is for young English learners to get acquainted with some school rules and commands. Children should read the command aloud and match it to the corresponding picture. Another oprion ...
6 Views 42,491 Beg
Ball Game (Starter)

Ball Game (Starter)

, Back to School,
This power-point presentation is appropriate for young learners. It's suitable for reviewing school objects, family, shapes and rooms. In this game you will play a song, ask students to pass the b ...
7 Views 31,308 Beg
Review ( Backpack 1; Unit 1-3)

Review ( Backpack 1; Unit 1-3)

This power-point presentation is appropriate for elementary students. This is helpful for reviewing numbers, school objects, family and body parts related vocabulary items. Hope you find it useful.
2 Views 19,104 Elem
Backpack 1; School Objects

Backpack 1; School Objects

, Back to School
This worksheet is appropriate for young learners studying school objects. It will take 20 minutes.  Hope you find it useful for your classes.
1 Views 14,947 BegElem
Icebreaking Dictation

Icebreaking Dictation

corinne hoffert
I use this activity at the beginning of the school year to make a revision of the basics: ame, age, expression of love and dislike, conjugation, etc.. Students usually love it. First I introduce t ...
16 Views 59,190 Int
Reading Comprehension: Getting Ready for School

Reading Comprehension: Getting Ready for School

Back to School,
Students are asked to read a short story about a boy who gets ready for school. They are asked to put the sentences in order from 1 - 5 and then answer the accompanying questions. This worksheet w ...
8 Views 48,753 Elem
Back to School Worksheet

Back to School Worksheet

» » Back to School
Most teachers kick off the school year by introducing themselves and talking about all the stuff you'll be doing that year. Some teachers give students a chance to tell something about themselves ...
2 Views 24,228 BegElem
What Is There in Your Schoolbag?

What Is There in Your Schoolbag?

Leontine
Back to School,
This worksheet is about school stuff. You can read the words and ask your students to repeat before telling them to follow the instructions. Ask them to look at the words and to focus on the diffe ...
6 Views 23,356 ElemPre-Int
Classroom English

Classroom English

Leontine
Back to School,
This worksheet is about classroom English. Let your student imagine sentences they might have to say in class and justify. E.g., they might come up with  "sorry , I don't have my book because ...
2 Views 19,551 Pre-IntInt
Instructions

Instructions

Leontine
Back to School,
This worksheet is about written instructions in tests or worksheets. It will enable you to revise the vocabulary and also the pronunciation of some words. There is a page with words to write ...
3 Views 20,550 ElemPre-IntInt
Find Someone Who...(2)

Find Someone Who...(2)

This resource can be used when starting the new school term. It is a nice way for students to start talking to their new classmates and finding out a bit about them. They can write the names of th ...
6 Views 70,673 Elem
Back to School Survey

Back to School Survey

This resource can be used when starting the new school term. It is a nice way to learn a little bit about your new students! Kids answer the questions and can also compare their answers with their ...
5 Views 55,750 ElemPre-Int
School Objects Word Search

School Objects Word Search

Adela Zakiyatunnisa
This worksheet has been designed for young learners of English and it's filled with illustrations to have fun while circling vocabulary related to school objects. It is known that young kids like ...
4 Views 35,396 BegElem
Memory Game

Memory Game

Back to School,
It's a memory game with vocabulary related to school material. It can also be used to do a labelling activity with beginner students who are still learning to read and write (they cut the pictures ...
5 Views 22,857 BegElem

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