I love the first day of school!! By far it is my favorite day of the entire year. This year I decided to save the boring syllabus stuff to the second day and focus on team building and start building how to work in effective teams. I usually inherit a group of Freshman who have already spent 3 years together in the same math class in Middle School. They know each other, I am the one who needs to learn how they work. Sometimes I get 10 kids who are so sick of each other that the class is like a group of siblings. They are so comfortable around each other that they have no filters. I have learned that we need to establish our class culture immediately. There is always at least one Negative Nelly that I love to turn around. This year did not disappoint. We started class immediately with an activity called 1 to 100. I liked this activity because it is just a page of numbers. The kids are on a pretty level playing field barring a sight impairment. I did have a student immediately announce their dyslexia and I told them that is OK that is why we have our team, you are not alone. Let's see how your group works with your specific skill set. That youngster rocked and actually led their group. Another youngster announced I don't work well in groups, and once again that ended up being my leader and he/she had a great time. I found this activity on Sara Van Der Werf's site and modified it a bit for my group of learners. When I asked if anyone had found a pattern they all said no, but as I watched them work I noticed that they had subconsciously figured it out. We moved on to The Tower of Cups, another activity that did not involve any math ability. I left the students in the same groups so they could build on the rapport they had already established. I had almost 100% participation, even the most timid learners were chiming in. I had the pleasure of having a college student visiting me and he joined a group. He didn't immediately figure it out and I think it made the kids feel good that they could hang with a Texas A&M student in a game. I loved watching the one group try to move their cups with just the string. There was a learning curve but they got it done. We debriefed and did some discussion questions as a whole group. Overall it was a great first day! One down and about 178 more to go. We are on a new type of block scheduling so there is a 5 day gap till I see my B'day kids again. We'll be working on our social contracts and setting up our Interactive Student Notebooks (ISN), more class culture and getting to know one another. I have found spending this time up front makes for a more functional class culture throughout the school year. Mrs. Jones
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