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- 🍎 Your K-2 Back-to-School guide is here! ✨
🍎 Your K-2 Back-to-School guide is here! ✨
Plus win prizes for sharing this newsletter!
Karly Moura & Christina Sciarrotto
August 04, 2026
Welcome back to What’s New in K-2!
Welcome back! We hope that everyone had a restful and enjoyable summer vacation! As we launch into our second year together, we are absolutely thrilled to continue supporting, inspiring, and cheering you on through another incredible school year. Teaching Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade is filled with unmatched energy, magic, and, let’s be honest, a lot of tied shoes, broken pencil points, and lost crayons! Whether you are returning for year two with us or joining our community for the first time, we are so excited you are here.
Our weekly newsletter remains the same: to bring you practical, joy-filled inspiration that saves you time and elevates your classroom. Here is a sneak peek of what you can look forward to landing in your inbox every single week:
Tips, Tools, and Templates: Ready-to-use digital resources, curated tools, and practical management strategies specifically tailored for primary hands and minds.
Teach with Teachflix: Engaging, age-appropriate video paired with quick lesson ideas to bring visual storytelling and dynamic learning straight to your rug.
Giggle of the Week: A lighthearted joke, funny classroom story, or comic to ensure you wrap up your week with a smile—because early childhood educators deserve the biggest laughs!
Thank you for the passion and creativity you pour into your classrooms every single day.
Karly and Christina
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Inside:
💡 Tips, Tools and Templates: The Ultimate K-2 Back to School Guide
📺 Teaching with TeachFlix Junior: Clark the Shark
😄 Giggle of the Week: Teachers after the 1st Day of School
❤️ Share your ideas with us!
💡 Tips, Tools and Templates
✅Your first week planned for you!
As you start prepping your classrooms and gearing up for a wonderful new school year, we know how valuable your time is. That’s why we’re so excited to share our latest interactive resource: The Ultimate K-2 Back-to-School Guide!
Created by Christina, this interactive guide is packed with practical tools, ready-to-use ideas, and time-saving resources designed specifically for kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd-grade classrooms.
Here is a quick look at what’s inside:
🤝 Icebreakers & Community Building: Engaging, low-prep activities designed to help your young learners connect, build trust, and create a welcoming classroom community from day one.
📚 First Week Activities & Read-Alouds: Fun first-week activity ideas plus quick access to go-to back-to-school read-aloud recommendations.
💻 Tech Tool Refresher: A handy tune-up to help you quickly get back up to speed on essential classroom technology.
📝 Templates & Bonus Materials: Ready-to-use back-to-school templates and extra resources to help streamline your planning.
Whether you're looking for new icebreakers to set a warm tone or looking for clean templates to organize your weekly routines, this guide has a little bit of everything to streamline your prep.
📺 Teaching with Teachflix Junior
🦈 Clark the Shark
🎥 Video Link: Clark the Shark Read Aloud
Clark the Shark, is a high energy shark that loves life, but his rough play, loud voice, and high energy scare his friends away. Clark the Shark learns the power of self control, friendship, and staying cool in this adventure.
Ready-made video resources:
🦈 Storyline Online Guides
Teacher's Guide: Includes Common Core–aligned ELA standards (K–2), pre/during/post-reading comprehension questions, rhyming couplet writing activities, and cross-curricular extension lessons covering Social Studies ("Rules to Stay Cool"), Science (buoyancy experiment), and Art (paper envelope shark puppet).
Family Activity Guide: Great for home-school connections and small groups. Features discussion prompts on self-control and behavior, a classroom comparison chart, a puppet craft, a "Fish Bowl Jello" cooking activity with math word problems, and an ocean science smell experiment.
✏️ Printable Activity & Skill Worksheets
Activity & Game Booklet: Features a maze ("Swim to School"), word puzzles ("What's in a Name?"), spot-the-difference visual puzzles, unscramble-the-letters school supply worksheets, and drawing prompts.
Reading Comprehension & Categorization Worksheets: Focuses on analyzing illustrations, understanding story characters/settings, sorting items into categories (Fish, School, Food), and comparing student classrooms to Clark's school.
🎨 Hands-On Crafts & Writing Activities
Stay Cool in School Craftivity & Writing Prompt: Printable craft templates where students build their own Clark the Shark and write a short response explaining how they "stay cool" and follow rules at school.
Clark the Shark Mask: Printable mask template that students can cut out and wear for interactive retelling and role-play.
🤭 Giggle of the Week
First day, second day, third day…
