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Getting to Know Your Students -- Icebreaker Activities
Education World has been collecting great icebreaker activities from teachers for more than a decade. This year, we spotlight some of the best of the more than 150 ideas that teachers have shared. Included: Ten creative, teacher-tested ideas.

August Lesson
A month with no holidays? Have students make up their own!


Education World's Work Sheet Library includes hundreds of free printables for use across the grades and across the curriculum. You will find a sampling of our printables below. Visit our Work Sheet Library for a complete selection.

Every-Day Edits
Primary Edits
Edit info about animals from A to Z.
Ele-Middle Edits
New editing activities month by month.

Writing Bug
Story Starter
I'm really good at these three things

Hunt the Fact Monster
Students learn Internet searching skills as they search the Fact Monster.
Primary Hunts
Ele-Middle Hunts

Build a Fab Vocab
Vocab-u-lous! Activity
Words that begin with A.

Geography A to Z
Places That Begin With the Letter T
Can you name all seven places?

Math Cross Puzzle
Math Puzzle # 16
Rounding numbers to the nearest tens, hundreds.

Make Your Own Work Sheet
Work Sheets for This Month
Create an activity for any subject.

More Printables
  • Work Sheets from Highlights for Children
    Hidden pictures, rebus stories, more.
  • Mystery State
    Use the clues to find the state.
  • Backpack-tivities
    Involve parents in homework fun.
  • Work Sheet Library
    See our entire library of free printables.

  • Fresh Ideas for Opening Day
    Have you done the same first-day-of-school activities for years? Toss out those stale ideas! If you're looking for fresh ideas, these five lessons might fill the bill. Included: Students discover their learning strengths, create magnificent works of art, have fun following directions, more.


    More Back to School Ideas
    Be sure to check out our Back-to-School Archive for more activities and tips for the first days of school.

    Substitute Survival
    Ten fun activities for subs (and regular teachers too).

    Lesson Plan of the Day
    See lesson plans posted on recent days:
    Monday
    A puzzle race builds cooperative group work skills. (Grades K-8)
    Tuesday
    Have fun making up new words, writing definitions for them. (Grades 3-12)
    Wednesday
    Fun activity reinforces estimation, number lines, mean, median, more. (Grades K-12)
    Thursday
    Ten strategies for creating lively debates in the classroom. (Grades 3-12)
    Friday
    Read slaves personal accounts of slavery; write a slave's account of freedom. (Grades 3-12)
    See more Lesson Plans of the Day.

    Learning Game of the Week
    Read the Teacher's Mind game reinforces vocabulary, more.


    Box Cars and One-Eyed Jacks Math Games With Joanne and Jane
    This week: Fishing for Division Facts.

    Friday Fun
    Older students and younger buddies team up for yearlong fun.

    Vicki Cobbs Show-Biz Science
    You can tell a person's shoe size without looking at his or her foot.

    From Our
    Early Childhood
    Activity Bank

    Special Activities for Back to School and More
    Make a Bulletin Board Friendship Quilt
    We Fit Together
    A Citizenship Flag
    Patriotic Pretzels
    Healthy Teeth Experiment

    From the Learning Machine
    Explore the coolest resources on the Web.
    From the Math Machine
    Time to Move is a fun Web site for teaching measurement and sorting. (Grades 1-2)
    From the Science Machine
    Use Energy Vampires to explore the topics of energy and electricity. (Grades 2-6)
    From the Reading Machine
    I Spy City reinforces vocabulary. (Grades K-4)

    Teacher-Submitted Lesson Plans
    Teacher Lesson #1
    Use a popular children's book to alleviate first-day-of-school jitters.
    Teacher Lesson #2
    Game teaches number line; positive, negative numbers.
    Teacher Lesson #3
    Fun activity teaches importance of continuity in writing.
    Teacher Lesson #4
    Students write text for wordless picture books.

    More Lesson Ideas
    Sudoku Puzzles
    Book Report Makeover
    Backpack-tivities (Homework Activities)
    Technology Lesson Plans

    Bulletin Boards That Teach
    You Fit Right In! -- It takes every student to complete this back-to-school bulletin board puzzle.

    5-Minute Fillers
    Volume 20.

    Month of Fun: August
    See some timely, fun, and educational Web resources for kids:
    Matthew Henson Cloze Activity (Grades 3-5)
    Presidents & Vice Presidents Matching Game (Grades 4-12)
    Wacky Web Tales: Summer Reading Report (Grades 3-12)
    Ramadan: Crescent Moon Coloring Page (Grades K-2)
    August Word Search (Grades 3-6)
    Left Handers Cloze Activity (Grades 4-8)
    Science Prefixes and Suffixes Matching Game (Grades 6-12)

    Just for This Month!
    See our August Month of Fun, August Word Search, and August Coloring Calendar. PLUS! Create your own work sheets for this months holidays and special days.



    Best Books for Teaching About…

    Each week, Education World presents our Editors Choices for the best books for teaching about popular classroom themes. Check out our choices and add your own recommendations to the Readers Voices section of this weeks themed booklists.

    Best Books for Teaching About...Inventors and Inventions

    Best Books for Teaching About...The Alphabet

    See more great books for students and classroom teaching themes.

    From the Education World MarketPlace

    Be sure to visit our MarketlPlace. The Education World MarketPlace features products handpicked for educators.

    This Week's Feature
    Arts & Crafts Supplies
    Looking for a great source of drawing supplies, tempera paints, or craft supplies such as glitter or wiggly eyes? The Education World Marketplace has everything you might need or want for classroom art projects.

    Remember, by shopping the Education World/SchoolNotes bookstore (powered by Amazon) you help us maintain Education World as a free resource for educators.