First Day of School

Click here to see my First Day of School 2014

I put up the same locker signs as I have in the past letting the students know I would be providing them breakfast for the first day (I informed them and their parents of this on Back To School Night). This group grazed on the donuts and muffins throughout our two hour orientation period.

Adorable napkins from Target dollar spot

Just to give you a little background on how we run our first day in 7th grade, we follow our bell schedule, but keep them the first two hours for orientation (normally 1st and 2nd period).  Encore hours are 3, 4, and 7 and we keep them the same so those teachers don't get cheated out of time the 1st day.  During our normal core hours of 5 and 6 we split them in half so we can do a 30 min class with each of our four core classes (normally hours 1, 2, 5, and 6).  Then we finish the day with a 20 min Homebase period which is like a study resource period.

My orientation time went great.  I have an awesome group of 1st hour accelerated math students.  We had lots of information to get through and they did a great job staying focused.  I had the students highlight their class schedules because we follow an A/B schedule for some encore classes.  They highlighted all A day classes one color and all B day classes a different color.  The hours where the colors mixed were the classes they have every day.  I then encouraged them to highlight their various classrooms on the map located on the back of their schedule.  I told them to write in the class hour and A, B, or E if they have a class everyday.  I never realized how confusing an A/B day schedule can be for 7th graders until my own son came through the middle school and I saw first hand how much these brand new 7th graders had to remember.  The layout of our school also confuses most people so imagine how it is for a a new 7th grader already feeling overwhelmed.

This year I decided to follow the same First Day Plan as I did last year because it went so well and I really loved the feedback I got from my students and I did not bore them to death with policies and procedures. This is what I did during my 30 min math classes.  We were short on time and did not even attempt "either or" that from the linked plans.  Well you know they saying about even the best laid plans...

I can relate was not what I would call a bomb, more like a fizzle, as in something I expected to go so well and was more like meh.  Overall I would say about 60% of the students completely got the concept, jumped right in, and kept the activity flowing.  The other 40% either were not completely clear on the concept or they just could not find ANYTHING to relate to another person about.  I mean who hasn't gone swimming or eaten some type of food for that matter.  It took much longer than it should have/I had planned for.  I think maybe we will revisit the activity again once students know each other a bit better.  It wasn't a total bust, but much bumpier than last year for sure.

Because I can relate took so long I adjusted in the afternoon and started with the Post-It note activity because I really wanted the feedback and I really wanted the students to feel they have a voice from Day 1.  I color coded the post-its I handed out by class hour so when looking at the comments I can easily see visually which hour they are from.

I changed up some of the prompts from last year

• Our classroom should be ____ everyday
• Math is important because...
• Mrs. Nackel can be most helpful by...
• This will be my best year of math because...

I loved the last prompt which was new this year.  I told my students that we are going to aim for the sky this year or "reach for the stars" Like my big banner says so I wanted them to think for a moment about what they will do different (or the same) to make this their best year of math.  Got some great feedback on that one.  I cannot emphasize enough how much I LOVE reading the reponses to the these and how much I learn about my students.

I have to say I had another awesome first day.  I did let the students sit wherever they wanted and this group is far too chatty for that right now.  Other years it has worked, but we have really big classes this year so we need to start with a teacher made seating chart.  I hope all you teachers out there had a wonderful first day!

Favorite First Day Activities

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.

The four completed Post-It posters.

What will Mrs. Nackel need to do to help you this year?

Our classroom should be _____ everyday.

My goal for math this year is...

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.

First Day Activities

As a teacher, what you do the first day/week really sets the tone for your classroom.  The most important thing I want to convey to my students those first few days of school is that my classroom is a fun and safe place and I am teacher with high expectations for all.  A few years ago I finally decided that the first day with my kids I was not going to talk at them all class period.  For one thing, my throat would be so dry and sore by the end of the day I could barely talk.  For another, I could just picture the thought bubble above every student's head as I droned on and on about expectations, procedures, and grading.  The video above perfectly sums up what I imagine my students' hear that first day due to information overload from seven different teachers.

I did a post about Welcoming Students to a New School.  I want my students to have a positive first day of school no matter what.  Some students come in completely confident, energized, and excited for their first day of middle school.  Others arrive nervous, upset, and overwhelmed.  I want to demonstrate to my students that my classroom is a safe place where everyone belongs.  I try to build that sense of classroom community from day one.  My teammate Linda who teaches Social Studies does the most fabulous job of creating a classroom community.  Last year she had students do bucket drops for each other.  That was a ton of extra work, but she took in and our students really enjoyed and appreciated it.

The past few years I have done this Number Activity for the First Day  in all my math classes.  Our classes that first day were always between 20-30 minutes long so my typical plan for day one was:

• Introduce myself
• Three part student intro:  Name, previous school, one summer memory
• Pass out the first assignment of the year, "Getting to Know You"
• Very quickly highlight the supply list (most important that they need a binder ASAP in addition the normal supplies)
• Play the Number Activity
• If there is any time left they can begin the "Getting to Know You"  which is due the first Friday of school

Another very fun and engaging activity I plan on doing this year is an activity I learned about during my initial Carnegie training called "I can relate".  Everyone stands up.  One person begins by making a statement and as they are talking someone else jumps in and says "I can relate" and explains why they can relate.  After a person speaks they get to sit down.  The person standing and talking keeps talking until someone else pops in with "I can relate".  It was a fun activity.  For example, someone said something about Spanish and I said, "I can relate because I double majored in Spanish and Eled".  At that point another teacher jumped in and said, "I can relate because I got a D in Spanish".  It just keeps going until everyone has sat down.  Some of the responses are quite comical.  People try to jump in because they do not want to be the last person standing.  I think it would be fun activity for the first day and it would get every student up on their feet and everyone would participate.  Has all the elements of a perfect icebreaker IMO!

The first days/weeks of school are all about establishing routines and procedures.  Consistency in expectations will help your students to quickly understand what you expect and value in your classroom.  It is up to you as a teacher to let your students know what your expectations are.

Linking up with Fun in First for the What's Your Favorite Back to School Activity?  link party.

Also linking up with The Caffeinated Teacher for her First Day Plans link party.

Number activity for first day

I teach 7th grade math and so the first day of school can be a bit chaotic to say the least.  We always have a special bell schedule for the first day of school and our academic class times end up being shortened.  I would say that class ends up being about 20 minutes instead of the normal 55 min.  I teach four sections of math (3 regular and 1 accelerate) and I like to be consistent in what we do the first few days of school for all four classes.

A few years ago, I decided to switch up my first day game plan.  My students see seven different teachers on the first day of school and I can only imagine how overwhelming that is and how these kids are on information overload.  Students are new to our building in 7th grade and the first day all they are worried about is getting lockers opened and not getting lost.  Due to nervousness I don't know how much they are actually "listening" to what teachers are saying.

Firs Day lesson plans from last year.

For this reason I like to get them up and moving around the classroom.  I also like to have an easy and nonthreatening activity where students can participate and get to know each other in a safe and fun manner.  After a quick and fun SMARTBoard warm-up, a brief discussion on supplies needed and quick introductions, I start asking a series of questions and students move to the number that applies to them.  I actually got this idea from one of our inservice activities and adapted it for my classroom.  It was a great way to get to know more about other teachers and everyone seemed to enjoy it (and that says a lot for an inservice activity!)

The numbers 0-12+ are posted around the perimeter of my room.

A sample list of questions:

~How many pets do you have? (then I go around and ask them to tell us about them, kids love a chance to talk about their pets)

~How old are you?  (you find out the age range of your students)

~How many siblings do you have?

~What is your birth order? (this is always interesting)

~What is the month of your birthday?

~How many extracurriculars do you participate in? (sports, dance, band, academic things )  Again the kids love to tell me about how they spend their free time.  This can also clue you in to who your introverts might be.

If I did some recording of the information we could use it to make graphs.  I have never done that before, but it could be a way to extend this activity.  

This could be easily adapted for any age student.  I can see it working really well with younger students. You may decide to adapt the number range and change up questions.  

This is really the perfect easy and fun activity to start with on the first day.  I get to know way more about my students and they get a break from a day of sitting and listening to teachers bore them with information overload.

I am linking up to Fun in First's Blog.  I have a feeling most ideas will be for primary grades, but hopefully I can find something to adapt for my math class.