First Day of School

Hey, y'all!

It's been a great summer, but the first day of school is tomorrow.  This is what I'm planning.

We'll start the day with Sara Vanderwerf's name tents.  I've never done this because I'm nervous about making myself reply back to every single student.  I'm implementing it this year because my school is doing a modified block schedule with A/B days.  I will only have to respond to half of my students each afternoon.  It'll be a lot of work, but I believe it will be worth it.

Next, I want my students to know a bit about me.  I'm showing them some slides with my family and friends.  



Next, we're doing a shortened version of Sara Vanderwerf's Numbers About Me.  I know it's Sara Vanderwerf, but I spent about 30 minutes scouring her blog and couldn't find the original post.  I found this slideshow she used, and it includes her activity.  Mine is below.


One goal that I always have is for my students to know how to communicate, especially mathematically.  They need to be able to justify their reasoning and know that everyone won't think the same way.  For this reason, I chose a "Which One Doesn't Belong" activity and a "Same but Different" activity.

As students are discussing these, they will "Stand and Talk" as they justify their reasonings and hear other students' thoughts.  Our class blocks last for about 90 minutes, so I want to make sure students aren't sitting down for the entirety of the class.

Afterward, we're going over the lovely classroom expectations and handbook...

Now, to the fun part!  Students do a lot of work in groups while they're working on whiteboards around the room (students are standing while doing this).  I want to create group norms on the first day.  They will do various activities within their groups, analyze how well they worked in their groups, and discuss what they noticed while they worked.  We will use these conversations to create our norms.  

Survival in the Desert.  I got this from Math=Love's blog.

A hodgepodge of tasks.  The first two are from "Designing Groupwork" by Elizabeth Cohen and Rachel Lotan.  I'm not sure where the last one is from...  (Note: the link will force you to copy a Google Doc)

That's pretty much it, y'all!  Students will write their comments on their name tents and we are ending the class with my "end of class" procedures.  This is just when kids pack up and clean up!  

My goal this school year is to create one blog per week!


Until next time,

Cononiah W.


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