Tuesday Talk Tuesday

Hello! Another Tuesday, and I’m talking about school. Can you tell that the first few weeks of school are time and energy consuming?

Now that we have our first few days under our belt, students are already starting to get to know me a bit as well as my expectations and routines in my classroom. Today, I’m sharing about the first few days of school activities.

Quite a few years ago, I developed a Google Slides presentation that has almost forty slides on it. The slides are anything from our bell schedule to my email address to the units of study for the year and more. This presentation is actually a great “crutch” as I’m getting back in the swing of teaching after a couple of months off in the summer.

I always over plan, and this presentation is one that will take two to three class periods, even with our new block schedule ninety minute periods! That being said, it’s filled with info, routines, literacy strategies and get to know you activities.

Sharing the syllabus is important, but it’s also redundant and boring for the students (and the teacher!), I’m sure.

I’m the queen of literacy strategies, and one of my favorites is “text coding” which is an active reading strategy.

As we read through the almost three page syllabus, I have them follow along and mark up the syllabus as we go. They highlight our NTI Google Meet link, star the unit they think sounds the most interesting, circle our grading category percentages and more. This method keeps them involved and teaches them a strategy we’ll use often.

My classroom scavenger hunt is one of my favorite activities. I give them a worksheet with fifteen questions, and they wander around the room to find the answers. Of course, the purpose is to get them acquainted with the room, and I love seeing them work together to find some of the tougher answers.

We start every class period with some kind of bellringer. They vary from vocab to grammar to quote analysis and more. The start of the year is the perfect time to show them the variety of bellringers they’ll do, and what the expectations are for each one.

I give them a worksheet, and we move through each type of bellringer. Some bellringers take longer and others, and the kids get the hang of how to complete each one as we work together before they work independently.

What’s the start of the year without a “four corners” get to know you activity. I have a few slides of these, and I choose different ones for different classes just to give myself a variety too.

I love to join their groups and see what they have to say. Of course, it’s awkward a first, but I have them figure out whose birthday is next, and that person shares first and so on. With having longer class periods, I do plan on incorporating these a bit more into our class time to give the kids a time to stretch their legs and move around a bit.

And on the fourth day of school, I was really itching to start learning names. They spent a few minutes yesterday (and my other classes will do this today) making a quick table tent with their names, class period, and a favorite.

My example:

I wait a couple of days, but eventually, we do this dice rolling get to know you as I take attendance. I’ll do this with my students Wednesday and Thursday this week. I like to let them get settled in the class before I “force” them to do too many get to know you things.

I have foam dice, and as I take attendance, they roll the dice and tell the class something based on the number they roll.

Unless you are a teacher, one thing you might not know is how much our rosters change within the first week of school. So, I wait to do this note card activity until I know my classes have settled. As the slide says, I use these note cards throughout the year to call on students or put students in groups.

I use different colored note cards for each class, students write their name on one side and then a Haiku (which I now have corrected the misspell on this slide! ugh) on the other side…anyway, the Haiku is a good reminder for them about poetry and syllables, and I get to learn a little something about them.

My example that I share with them:

Anyway, the first few days are some of my faves because I don’t have to plan much, it’s ok not to have a learning target on the board, and I enjoy getting to know the students.

They received their textbooks yesterday (and today), and later this week, they’ll do a “text walk,” where they flip through their textbook to answer questions. This gets them acquainted with this resource we’ll be using all year and refreshes their memory on how to use text features like table of contents, foot notes, the index and more!

Anyway, I think the year is off to a pretty good start!