A Sweet Start to the School Year

Boy is the summer flying by, and hopefully everyone is having a great one so far.  There has been a lot of VERY stressful things happening in my personal life, so I have been attempting to feel some control over my life by thinking ahead to the first week back with kids so I have something ready in case things don't improve.

Even when things are going great both at home and professionally I still tend to plan ahead, so I honestly can say I've been thinking about how to start off the year with the students for awhile now.  Last year, I made fifty cupcakes and we had cupcakes and did these cupcake conversation starters available here at TPT (after we set up our speech folders , course)!

This was a big hit because the kids really liked the treat and how relaxed we started the year off.  This year, I think I will do either a get-to-know you activity around Skittles or M & M's like these below:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Get-to-Know-You-Game-and-Graph-Skittles-Edition-832999
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Skittles-get-to-know-activity-815285
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Skittles-Ice-Breaker-A-Get-to-Know-You-Activity-848709
http://www.girlsministries.org/fall-2013-crafts-recipes-and-ideas

Food can be tricky sometimes, as so many kids have food allergies these days, so a book for the first session of the year can be a good alternative like this good one (Chrysanthemum) I posted about  here. 

What fun activities are you using to start off the next school year?