I know that it's time for many people to go back to school. Teachers are filling up their classrooms with new supplies and decorating, while the students are buying all their new clothes and school supplies. I just went to Walmart and bought $50 worth of supplies for my son who is going into first grade! The looming question for many teachers (and dreams for me that start in July) is what am I going to do the first week of school? Are you going to jump right in with curriculum? Are you going to incorporate some ice breakers to get to know your students? Create rules? This back to school linky party is to see what teachers are doing for the first day or week of school.
Normally what I do the first couple days of school/week is establish all the basics. Because my first day of school is on a shorten schedule, I don't get to spend much time with my new students; therefore, in an extremely quick forum, I go over the requirements and needs for the classroom on the first day. Because I do Interactive Notebooks with my students, I usually create a folder for my students with a few dittos-Requirements and Rules for English (this gets pasted into their Interactive Notebook), Remind101 sheet linked up to my class (Have you used this?!?! Go to www.remind101.com. Parents get reminders on their cell phones!), as well as other odds and ends.
The next day, I will finish up with whatever I didn't get to finish up with from the day prior. I usually have the students create name tags to go on their desk because I have 130 students' names I have to memorize (ugh). In addition, I create an anchor chart of all the questions that middle schoolers love to ask and the answers to these questions. It drives me bananas when my students ask questions that they know the answer to-Can I use the bathroom? Can you sign my pass? When is extra help?
Once all of the basics and questions are answered, I like to get to know my students. I created a fun and engaging activity that is current! Students love to talk about themselves, especially middle school students, so I created a Facebook Getting to Know Me back to school activity. In this activity, student talk about themselves, their likes in music and movies, as we as their hobbies and favorite quotation.
Click on the picture to go straight to the product!
I hope you have a very successful first week starting school!
Kim