Start students talking by giving them a chance to share details of their exciting summers. Assign students a summer story, asking them to compose a short tale about something thrilling that happened during their summer vacation, perhaps asking them to add pictures as well to communicate their ideas better as their writing skills are likely still quite rudimentary. While many students will have tales to share, you may want to allow those who insist that nothing exciting happened during their summer to write fictional tales of summer adventures they wish they had experienced. Use this activity to help your students become used to talking in front of the class by asking each student to prepare a summer speech. Give him five note cards that he must fill with things that happened during his time away from school.
Game play is an effective way to encourage students to get to know their new classmates in these first days of school. Engage your first and second graders in a round of two truths and a lie, asking each student to write two true facts about herself on a piece of notebook paper along with one fib. Allow the students to share these truths and lies and have pupils guess which ones are true and which is not. For an artsy game, try a student picture match-up, asking each student to draw a picture to represent him, and then asking the class to match the pictures to the artists who drew them.
Prepare yourself to better teach your students by having them reflect on their past educational experiences as part of your back-to-school process. Have your students design and administer a poll, gathering information from others in the class regarding each student's favorite subject. Ask students to write journals telling you what they like most and least about school, helping you make the learning process as enjoyable as possible.
Excite your students about what lies ahead by having them look toward the future. Instruct students to work cooperatively and make a list of what they hope to learn during the year. Help motivate your students by having them set goals for themselves and setting up a bulletin board on which you can display these goals, keeping them in your students' minds as they work toward them.