Learn About the Teacher

• Organize students in groups to correct your mistakes and break the ice.pencil eraser image by Richard Seeney from Fotolia.com
  
  Children always love to hear what the teacher does when she isn't at school. For the first day, write a couple of paragraphs about yourself. Explain your hobbies, interests, background information and anything else you want to include. Students enjoy hearing about your most embarrassing moments, a great accomplishment or a funny story from when you were their age. Write about your favorite books or movies. Purposely include several spelling mistakes, grammar errors and run-on sentences. Have students work in pairs to correct the paper.
  
  

Learn All About Each Other

• Students can really get to know each other on the first day.Smiling kids image by Marzanna Syncerz from Fotolia.com
  
  Randomly group students into pairs. Explain that each child will interview each other. Have them ask each other about extracurricular activities, interests, hobbies or goals. Give each child a guideline as to how you wish for the information to be presented. For example, you may want the information to be in paragraph format. Go ahead and set your expectations on this day. Tell the children exactly how to label the paper and that you expect complete sentences. Daily practice of correct techniques is very important and should begin now (Reference 1). The kids will enjoy learning about each other and sharing their findings with the class.
  
  

Build Vocabulary

• Use the season of summer to build interest in advanced vocabulary.summer image by Oleg Kapustin from Fotolia.com
  
  One important way to improve the children's writing skills is by teaching them to use stronger vocabulary words (Reference 2). Begin by displaying two paragraphs. One should have weak vocabulary words while the other has very vivid words. Remind the students that you should "show not tell" your readers when writing a story. Break students into groups of three or four. Give each group a challenge to think of vivid words for several aspects of their summer break. For example, have one group think of vivid words for warm weather sports. Another group can think of advanced vocabulary words to describe the beach.
  
  

Observe Students' Writing Skills

• Assess every child's skills with a creative writing prompt.girl writing image by Julia Britvich from Fotolia.com
  
  The first day of school is the ideal time to observe what skills need to be addressed and which ones the children already possess. This serves as somewhat of an informal assessment of the children's abilities. Give every student the same prompt--a question or topic designed to generate creative writing--and the same amount of time in which to answer. Thirty-five minutes should be an adequate amount of time for most students to respond. The prompt should allow for creative writing and pertain to summer. For example, "This morning you woke up and realized you had two more weeks of summer. Your best friend called to tell you that she had found the most amazing thing in her backyard." Make sure every child knows that they are free to be as creative as they want.