The beginning of the school year 2018 started off great! Of course, I spent the last few weeks putting my room together and planning a bunch of fun activities for the first week and it paid off. This was probably my best opening in years- everything labeled quickly, my room set up in time, and a great first few days with my new kiddos!
When the day began, I had students read a “Meet the Teacher” sheet I created about myself. Well, about half of them. See, I have 13 students who looped with me from last year, so they got a sheet called “How Well Do You Know Your Teacher?” That sheet had the same information, but it had blanks for certain words. For instance, when I talked about my two dogs, they had to write in their names. I know they got those right for sure.
Then students filled out their own sheet titled, “Meet Your Student” for me to read. While the class did that, I took first day individual pictures and photo booth shots. I set up a photo booth of a movie star runway because my first day theme was “You are going to be a star in 4th or 5th grade.” I called upon a student, who chose a few friends to join them. The pictures turned out sooo… cute!
One of the first activities I did with the kids was Headbands. I created cards that reviewed rules and positive thoughts I wanted the students to use this year. After modeling to my students how to play, I set them free to play in pairs. I have 31 students, so I was a partner to one of my boys. I remember saying to him at one point, “I should know this, I wrote the cards!” It was really fun! This activity was our intro to expectations I have this year for the classroom.
Another activity I did which the students loved was Riddle Up. I wrote ten math questions on colored sheets of paper and taped them up around the room. Under each math problem was letters in an envelope. I gave the students a riddle and they had to go around and answer the math problems. When they completed one problem, they would come to me to check it and if it was right, they would go back and grab the letter to that problem. Once they finished all ten problems and collected all ten letters, they could solve the riddle by unscrambling the letters. It went really well. One of my kiddos said, “Can we do math like this everyday?”
Finally, I wanted to share about some new lap tables I just got. The first day I brought the kids up to the carpet for our math lesson, my kids wanted to try these little desks I got for flexible seating. I only bought about six and they are begging me for more. Guess I am going to Michael’s this weekend! Luckily, they are pretty inexpensive!
I hope you all have a wonderful start to the year! Many of my beginning of the year activities came from the conferences I attended this summer. If you ever have a chance to attend Get Your Teach On, Hello Lit Con, or Happy Go Teach, you should try to attend. Each one has different things to offer and you will walk away with practical things to do with your students tomorrow!
See you next week!
Karen