Best Back to School Book

The start of the school year can be an exciting time for students, but it can also be overwhelming. As a teacher, it’s important to ease your students into a comfortable and supportive environment. A great way to create a positive atmosphere is through engaging and relaxing first week activities. My all-time favorite, first day of school activity is reading the book “Ish” by Peter H. Reynolds.

What’s Ish?

If you’ve never read it, “Ish” is a an adorable and short book about a little boy who wants to be an artist.  He loves drawing and draws every chance he gets, until someone laughs at one of his picture and he completely gives up.  He decides that if his art isn’t perfect, he shouldn’t create it.  Throughout the story, he’s shown a different perspective.  Maybe his drawing of a vase isn’t a perfect vase, but it is “vaseish.” 

I read this book with my students and we have a conversation about trying to be perfect, or feeling frustrated when we don’t understand something straight away.  Most kids will be able to relate to these feelings and the conversations are usually fabulous.  As their teacher, I always share my own frustrations about perfectionism too, so they know they’re not alone.

After we’ve read the book and finished our chat, I pass out a paper for each student to create their own “ish” self portrait.  I like to get super fancy and type the student’s names right onto their paper so they all have a uniformed look.  I also provide a light outline of the face shape, again to ensure some uniformity.  Click below to download your free copy of this template that you can edit for your own students.

Create a Hallway Display!

These make a perfect hallway display! Especially if your county holds a curriculum or back to school night.  My parents always go crazy over these adorable portraits, asking immediately if they’ll be sent home when I change our bulletin board.

My favorite part about this activity is we use it as a reminder throughout the year.  Whenever someone is getting frustrated or overwhelmed we can remind them to “ish.”  You’d be amazed how well it works!  My students have even reminded me to “ish” before! 

I sincerely hope you have a wonderful“ish” school year!

-Emmy