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It can be difficult for students and teachers to re-engage a class during the winter, spring, or after another long school break. While time away from the classroom is important for resting and recharging, it can also disrupt everyone’s rhythm. During those first few days back, the brain needs to be primed for learning and a routine needs to be re-established so you can get back on course quickly. These low-prep welcome back activities can help you and all of your students energize education.
Welcome back from winter vacation activities
With holiday festivities over and summer vacation still some time away, it’s easy to see that returning to school after winter break can be a challenge. Simple winter transition activities for kids can help students get back into the swing of things with minimal preparation.
Rebuilding relationships with icebreakers and sharing activities
It’s important for teachers to allow space to reconnect with students (and between students) after long breaks. Find resources for students to share their latest happenings with you and their classmates.
A moment of winter vacation – bell ringing sharing activity
Draz’s class
Grade: K-2
Subjects: Writing, Painting
This quick, fun reflective writing activity can be used as a jingle, center activity, or writing essay to get students back in school after a few days off. It includes a page with five dots for students to draw their breaks. There is also some space below the picture for marking or writing.
Welcome back from winter vacation, question-and-answer activity, morning meeting, ice-breaking fun
by funky apple
Grade: 1-3
This no-prep activity gets students moving as they answer fun trivia questions about the winter holidays and New Year’s. This resource includes 25 questions, answer pages, and editable slides for adding your own questions.
Start with goal setting for the next few days
The start of a new year provides students with a natural opportunity to set intentions and goals—whether personal, academic, or shared as a class.
SMART Goal Setting and Identity Unit for Upper Elementary and Middle School
Take root and learn
Grade: Grade 3 to Grade 8
Subjects: Character Education, Classroom Community, Art
This goal setting unit will deepen students’ understanding of their own identities as a foundation to guide them in creating SMART goals. It includes nine printable worksheets and two art projects.
New Year: Goals, Resolutions, Activities, Writing Prompts – Interactive
Author: Literary Shirley
Grade: 5-8
Subjects: English Language Arts, Writing
Standard: CCSS W.6.4, 6.10, 7.4
Welcome students back to school with 15 goal-setting activities and writing prompts that ring in the new calendar year and help students develop personal and academic resolutions to refocus on their studies.
Review and reteach classroom rules and expectations
Reviewing classroom rules, procedures, and expectations at the beginning of the school year is a given, but you should also do a similar exercise after returning from a long break. The first week back from winter break is also a good time to reflect on what routines are working and what aren’t, in case you need to adjust a few things to make the rest of the year run smoothly.
Classroom Procedures and Routines
In progress through teaching
Grade: Pre-kindergarten to third grade
Topic: Character Education
This resource includes journal pages, prompts and a mini-book to help establish classroom routines and procedures. Students list the steps of a routine, reflect on how their adherence to the routine affects them and others, and draw and write about what the routine looks, sounds, and feels like. Each reflection page comes with a blank version for you to write specific procedures to support your personal classroom management.
Welcome Back (Fall, Winter or Spring Break) Task Card
Author: Miss No. 5
Grade: second grade to eighth grade
This resource includes 11 Welcome Back task cards, each containing a question. You can choose to print them as full-page slides or print two slides onto one page. The cards are placed around the room and students walk around answering each question on the recording sheet.
Welcome back from spring break activities
With the school year coming to an end, readjusting to school after spring break can be especially challenging. Find spring activities for kids to re-energize and engage your students through the next few months so you can end the year on a high note.
Enjoy simple seasonal fun and get back into learning
Encourage students’ energy and excitement with some fun seasonal lessons and activities that are sure to interest them—even if students may not “feel” like being in school.
How to Draw Winter and Spring Animals: Directional Painting Freebies
Prince Padanya
Grade: K-3
Topics: Visual Arts
Nurture creativity and develop early art skills with these two “Directed Painting” art courses. Beginner-friendly step-by-step instructions to help you teach elementary school students how to draw cute penguins and beautiful butterflies.
Spring Reading Comprehension Article After-Class Writing Mathematics Activities
Author: Think Giggle
Grade: Grade 3 to Grade 5
Subjects: English Language Arts, Intensive Reading, Mathematics
Standard: CCSS 3.NBT.A.2, A.3, A.4
This pack includes spring-themed intensive reading activities, nonfiction and fiction reading, differentiated math, and creative writing activities to keep your students engaged all season long. None of the activities are holiday specific so can be done at any time in late winter and spring.
Focus on social-emotional learning
When students reenter the classroom after spring break, they may bring with them a variety of feelings and emotions that impact their learning. While some students may be excited to start over, others may be feeling anxious, fearful and stressed about their grades or upcoming end-of-year exams. By conducting some type of SEL check-in after returning from break that focuses on strengthening social-emotional skills, you can help understand how your students are feeling and prepare them for success.
Growth Mindset Activities for SEL – Courage, Mistakes, Perseverance, and Resilience
Author: Mikey D Teach – SELebration Learning
Grade: Grade 3 to Grade 6
Topics: Character Education, Classroom Community, Social Emotional Learning
This presentation will guide your students through the concepts of SEL: perseverance, resilience in multiple areas of life, and how to handle mistakes gracefully and develop a plan to resolve them.
Growth Mindset Lesson: A fun, interactive school counseling trivia game!
Through Wholehearted School Counseling
Grade: Grade 4-7
Topic: Classroom Community
The Growth Mindset Game Show will teach your students about resilience and the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. This resource includes Google Slides and PowerPoint presentation files that you can use for SEL remote learning, teletherapy, virtual counseling groups, school counseling coaching, and in-person classes.
Get back into your course easily
While it’s easy to get up and running after spring break, your student may need some time to build up the stamina to learn again. The first week back is a good time to go over concepts from earlier in the year or give them small assignments they can still keep aligned with CCSS.
Editing after spring break with a digital easel activity
Author: Happy Educator
Grade: 6-8
Subjects: ELA test prep, grammar, writing
Standard: CCSS L.6.1, 7.1, 8.1
Students transformed into “teachers” and corrected writing errors in sentences about spring break. There are 25 sentences containing common mistakes made by seventh grade students.
Post-Spring Break Writing Activity: Fun Fill-in-the-Blank and Descriptive Writing
Overloading curriculum and design with creativity
Grade: 4th-8th grade
Subjects: English Language Arts, Writing
This all-in-one printable activity has students create a fun filler story about their break using all parts of speech. Students then wrote authentic versions of their spring break.
Spanish writing activity after spring break
by learning camel
Grade: 8-11
Topics: Spanish
Your students will write in past tense what they did as they broke and drew the image. Vocabulary, rubrics, brainstorming, and teacher samples are all included!
Welcome students back with open arms and participate in fun activities at TPT
There’s no shortage of resources to welcome students back from break! From fun questions of the day to out-of-seat indoor recess games, you can choose from a variety of activities to keep everyone connected and reconnected with their education.
