Well, the Earth never stopped spinning this summer, and I'm suddenly finding myself face-to-face with the start of another school year. (My twentieth!) Looking back at previous summers, I can remember feeling that impossible tugging between wanting to relax/travel/read ALL the books and knowing that I inevitably had to devote some of my time toward lesson and material revision for the next school year to run more smoothly.
Part of that summer revision was just the process of discovering who I was as a teacher. Part of it was my youth and dearth of materials and experience to draw from. And part of it was just fun; I love to create! But now that I've got a couple of decades down, I spend much less of my summer worrying about the start of the school year. I know what works for my students and for me. If you are looking for ideas to try in your classroom as the school year begins, maybe these will be a good fit!
There are, of course, a number of objectives we need to work toward during those first couple of weeks:
Get to know who our students are and learn about their goals and past experiences
Introduce ourselves to our students
Introduce class and school procedures, expectations, and consequences
Preview the curriculum/introduce some course content
Build classroom community
But the reality is that the return to school can be overwhelming for your students and for you, and sometimes the best activities for this week are the simplest.
Here's what I do during the first six days:
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 |
Icebreaker Games | About Me Slides +Student Survey | Read, annotate, and discuss a poem | Grudgeball Review Game over Teacher and Procedures |
While Day 1 and Day 6 are at the beginning and end for a reason, the rest of these days could be placed in any order. In this series, we'll talk about each one.
Day 1: Teacher Two Truths and One Lie
The first day of school can feel super overwhelming for students, and it is not the time to force them to take social risks and introduce themselves to the class. I choose to take this day to take some of the pressure off of them and talk about myself.
For this game, I break my students into groups of about 4 and then we play a game where I tell them two true things about myself and one lie, and the groups each have to guess which one is the lie. This is a great opportunity for students to look for clues around my classroom, make inferences based upon their first impressions, and just be playful with me. I reveal the answer, and award points to the groups who guessed correctly! I award the winning group with candy or stickers, AND I remind students that some of this information will resurface later in a review game (Day 6)
For a an editable template of this slideshow, CLICK HERE! I've included tips for coming up with your own truths and lies. : )
This is such a fun, easy way to start the year out. Kids don't feel on edge because they don't have to introduce themselves yet, and it's a great way to showcase your personality.
Looking for more ideas for the start of the year?
Keep an eye out for our next post on Day 2: First Week Stations!
Stay weird!
~Jamie
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