To see my post click on First Day of School 2014
To see my post click on First Day of School 2013.
I had a wonderful first day of school this year. Things went just as I planned and I think my students enjoyed a couple new to them, getting to know you activities and of course no homework the first day. Things have been going very well, although all the technology issues that I have to troubleshoot with our new PCs are enough to drive me to the brink of a Technology induced Armageddon.
Today I am going to share my favorite new first day activities. I posted my First Day Plan previously so you can click on that to see an explanation for what we did. Today I am recapping how things went and sharing a few photos with you.
1) I can relate. This went really well and some classes had a much more interesting chain of answers than others. One class ended up being several "I can relate because I have a dog" and another was "I can relate because I have cousins". I think next year I will tell them that two people max can say the same thing and then we have to move on to another topic. I have some kids that struggled to give an answer, but we kind of helped them along. Overall it was fun, the kids enjoyed it, and I will definitely do it again.
2) Post-It Note Activity. I LOVED this! I ended up buying the small post-it notes for my classes because I have 100+ students and I knew the 3x3 would not fit on a large poster. It worked wonderfully. I gave each class hour a different color post-it because then I figured I could track the answers by class hour. I am glad I did it this way, and the poster ended up being very colorful. I passed out four post-it notes to each person and then we filled one poster at a time. I would read the statement/question and then one person per group would bring the post-its up and place them on the poster. The kids enjoyed the movement.
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| The four completed Post-It posters. |
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| What will Mrs. Nackel need to do to help you this year? |
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| Our classroom should be _____ everyday. |
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| My goal for math this year is... |
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| Math is important because... |
It was really fun to read through the answer and get a quick idea of what the kids think. The two top answers for "Our classroom should be ____ everyday" were clean and quiet. Clean was the overwhelming answer. LOL The kids are on the same wavelength as me for sure. :)
3) I think we only had time to do either or in one class. It was pretty interesting to see their choices. This is an activity I will definitely use throughout the year. My favorite choices were fractions or decimals, algebra or geometry, and textbooks or computers. It was fun.
I had a great first day and really loved the the new activities we did. They are all keepers for next year.
I love the post it note idea! Thanks for sharing :)
ReplyDeleteI am pinning the post-it note idea and hope to use it to assess what is working or not since my class is 6 weeks into the year. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI loved doing this with my students this year and now they love doing anchor charts with post it notes. I pose either an exit ticket or an entrance ticket at least once a week where they can add to the board. :)
ReplyDeleteInformative Blog. i liked it very much!!
ReplyDeletecool math for kids
Love your stuff! Can't wait to try the post it note idea!
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to my first day teaching, and trying your Post-It idea. I think it will be a hit, and getting student feed-back will help me out a lot as well.
ReplyDeleteI am very excited to try something like this... I really dislike the first day of school. Maybe this will help the day! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletehttp://littlesassafras.blogspot.com
You are welcome. I loved the first day last year. It was the first time ever I did not have a sore throat from talking so much. Good luck!
DeleteHi Sherrie, I was wondering if you can explain "I can relate" and "either/or" games a little bit more. How do you start the games?
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas for the first day of school. I am so tired of the boring worksheets. Your ideas are making me excited to go back to school. Thank you!
Yes please. I am a little confused too and I really want to try I can relate game on the first day. Love you ideas Sherrie!
ReplyDeleteI found the explanation of the game in the August 5th post.
ReplyDeleteI found the explanation of the game in the August 5th post.
ReplyDeleteAre the students just relating to each other? Like in a chain reaction?
ReplyDeleteWe started school today and I had my classes do the poster post-it activity. I LoVeD it!! They seemed to enjoy getting to do something new on the first day back too! :-) Thanks so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteJulie
I found your blog because I'm planning to do the post-it activity on our first day. I love all of your ideas! It's so nice to see another middle school teacher, I feel like sometimes we are few and far between in the blogging world. :)
ReplyDeleteTeaching Teens in the 21st
Loved the post it activity. Question: How long do you leave these posters up in the classroom. I imagine the post its start drying out and falling off?? Laminating them would be cool and leaving up for the whole year!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this idea - I'm going to try it this year with my 8th graders!
ReplyDeleteI'm trying this tomorrow with three classes (6th, 7th and 8th grades.) I'll report back tomorrow!
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