Not Your Average BACK TO SCHOOL Round-Up!

We (Naomi + LaNesha) are so excited to bring you a round-up of our FAVORITE back to school resources. But- buckle up. This is definitely not your average set of activities! We will show you how WE kick off our year!

Names are a BIG DEAL!

Names are so important. They just are. Unfortunately, we’ve witnessed educators on message boards, comment sections, and even blog posts from popular educators making fun of the names of the students that they’ve seen on their rosters. Hear us when we say this: that’s rude and wrong. I don’t care what the child’s name is…at the end of the day, that name was given to them and it is not our place to judge and make fun.

We good? Great.

So- we decided to create a resource that would celebrate names and also make sure that their names are pronounced correctly. We also recognize that a lot of activities done at the beginning of the year can be triggering for some children. Projects that ask children to share their family history, parents’ jobs, who they were named after… etc. can make some children feel some kind of way if they don’t have access to this information. We have to be mindful. In this resource, we ask children to tell how their name feels to them. We ask them to share exactly how to say it and we celebrate it! See below:

(click any image to be taken to the resource)

Not Your Average Back to School Unit!

We have a line of resources that we call “Not Your Average” because we love to take thematic units that have been done for years (apples, pumpkins, turkeys, etc…) and teach them like NEVER before. We made a Back to School Unit that focuses on the social studies strands that we try to include in our curriculum: sociology, history, civics, geography, and economics. This unit invites students to learn about how different parts of the world live! Take a look and click any image to be taken to the resource:

Perspective Through Picture Books: The Name Jar

For reading, we decided to use a FANTASTIC book called The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi. This book is a great way to get conversations going about diversity and inclusion in the classroom! In this book, the main character, Unhei is a new student from Korea. On the bus ride to school, she shares her name and is made fun of immediately. By the time she gets to her class and they ask what her name is, she is unwilling to share it. Her classmates try to help her by putting names in a jar so that she can pick one. You’ve GOT to grab the story to see how it ends! It’s a lovely story. Take a peek at our digital resource. If you want to read more about our Perspective Through Picture Books, click here.

We also wanted to include some of our favorite resources to get your students learning! (Click the images)

Social Studies for September is always jam-packed full of culture and things our students need to know about the world!

We make time to dive into culture from the very start!

When it’s time to introduce nonfiction to our students, we take 2 weeks to go through our background builders units. We think of nonfiction texts as the information that builds our students’ background knowledge.