First Week Back January Reset for Middle School

Ask thirty-two seventh graders on the first morning back how you hand in work, and you will get thirty-two answers. This kit lets them write the routines themselves, in teams, and then try to break each other's.

It is four 45-minute lessons and a 10-minute Friday close for grades 6 to 8, plus a 20-minute check-in in February, written for classes of 20 to 36.

What is inside, in 20 pages:
- Day 1, Routine Stress Test: ten routine cards and a team sheet. Teams write a routine in three steps, then another team acts as a forgetful new student and finds where it breaks. The first minutes are silent, but a student who needs something real gets a quiet answer.
- Day 2, Winter Break in Six Words: a slip with six boxes. Students may write about the break, an invented break, or anything else, and no one is asked which. Nothing is collected: each student keeps their slip and chooses whether to read it out, tape it to the wall (the page says plainly that neighbors can see who tapes, and that taping can wait until before or after class) or hand it to you, and passing needs no word.
- Day 3, Second-Half Goals: three checks for a goal you can actually start, an eight-goal sort with a teacher key, and a three-lane goal sheet with a February check-in on the back.
- Day 4, Class Agreement Re-Vote: keep, fix or drop ballots with circles only, mixed before anyone counts them, a tally sheet with a counting check, team rewrites, and a second vote on folded scraps with a pass rule that scales to your class size.
- Day 5 and February: a 10-minute Friday close and a 20-minute check-in.
- A one-page week plan with copy counts for classes of 20, 24, 28, 32 and 36, board text for every day, and a page on keeping the week safe for students who had a hard break, with a space to write your own school's procedure.

Every lesson page gives materials, minute-by-minute steps that add up, an easier and a harder version, and what to do when it goes wrong. No dates or years are printed, so it works in any January. The kit makes no research claims.

The zip holds a 20-page fillable PDF with 199 form fields, and a print version of the same 20 pages with no fields. The squares and circles to mark on the student sheets are for printed copies.

Made with AI assistance, then checked page by page. Use first names or initials, and follow your district's rules on what can be left for a substitute.

Made by Made for This Day — we wrote it, we sell it, and we answer for it.

Instant digital download. Nothing is posted to you — the file is yours the moment you pay, and you can print it as many times as you like.