5 Fun French Back to School Activities for the First Day of School Your Students Will Love

The first day of school can bring a lot of different feelings: excitement, anticipation, nerves, and curiosity. Having fun French back to school activities for the first day of school can help students (and even teachers) open up, feel comfortable, and begin to ease those first-day jitters.

Here are five first day of school activities I recommend if you teach French immersion!

Activity #1: Get To Know You Activity

On the first day of school, especially in younger grades, it can feel extra intimidating. It’s likely that students don’t know each other or haven’t made friends, so you’ll want to make introductions right from the start. This French back to school activity is perfect, without being a stereotypical tout sur moi worksheet.

Have students draw a self-portrait on one side of a paper. Then, on the other side, they will write three facts about themselves. To turn this into a fun activity for the first day of school, collect all of the pages and read them to the class. Have students guess which student it is!

Activity #2: Team Building Activity

Another fun French back to school activity is a co-operative play activity. One of my favourite ways to do this is through mystery images.

Put students in groups, and give each group a piece of chart paper with graphing lines. Then, give students instructions for colouring coordinates. Each coordinate needs to be coloured a specific colour, and at the end, they’ll have pixel art of a school-themed item!

I like to give each group a different picture, so they can’t rely on each other. Want to try this activity in your classroom? Grab the School Mystery Images here!

Activity #3: Back to School Centres Bundle

Make back to school simple with some easy French day of school activities. When you’re just meeting students, it’s hard to know how long an activity will take or how much to plan. These quick and fun first day of school activities can be used as time fillers, with early finishers, or of course, as centre rotations.

The Back to School Centres Bundle includes mystery words, puzzles, write the room, writing prompts, and more engaging activities.

Activity #4: Games

What better way to kick off the school year than with a fun French back to school game? Games are a great way to review vocabulary, get students working together, and ease any first day nerves.

You can use these during a lesson or even as a brain break during the first few weeks of school to encourage collaboration and help shy students open up.

This Back to School Games pack includes activities like “Little Mouse, Where Are You?”, “Bang!”, make your own bingo, and more. Plus, these games aren’t exclusive to the first day of class. You can use them throughout the year with different vocabulary and content.

Activity #5: Free French Back to School Activities

I know that back to school can feel a bit chaotic, so I’m making it simple with four back to school freebies. These French freebies are great for grades K-2. Use them for early finishers or filler activities during the first week of school.

When you sign up for the French Back to School Freebies, you’ll get access to colour by code, back to school snap cube centre, mystery words, and a back to school craft!

Want to check out the resources listed?

All the links above lead to TPT, but the resources are also available on our website. Here are the resources available here for purchase in CAD. Don’t forget you can also buy credits for an additional discount (up to $15 off).

I hope these fun first day of school activities helped you brainstorm some new and exciting ideas. Looking for more first day of school plans? Check out my blogs where I plan the First Day of Grade 1, First Day of Grade 2, and the First Day of Grade 3!