First Week Activities

I am always very curious as to how each teacher starts off the year with their students.  What procedures do they teach? How do they set up their room?  What is the first activity they have students complete?   Each of these things sets the tone of your classroom for the year.  The importance of these first few days is immeasurable.  This year is the first in my career where I will start off the year with a core classroom on the first day of school (in fact I have two core groups this year).  So far I have come up with four activities I want my students to complete that first week of school.

1. I want them to fill out a very brief questionnaire.  It gets the most basic information about them and their access to technology.  [As an aside, none of my first week activities involve tech because I have limited access to it and I want to see what kinds of tech the kids have before making grandiose plans]

2. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...C'est moi!  Is an activity to let me know about some of their likes and interests. 

 

3. Personal pennant is an open ended activity where students create a pennant that represents themselves.  It has to include their name, age and a small photo/picture of themselves.  Otherwise they can put whatever they want on them.  Student's pennants will be put up around the room to create a sense of community. 

4. The game two truths and a lie inspired this activity.  I was looking for a fun way to collect a writing sample from the students right away this year, so I came up with this post card game.  Students will create two postcards. One with something they did this summer and one with something they wish they had done this summer.  The goal is to stump the other students when they present their postcards later in the week. Each student will have a sheet to keep track of their guesses on.  The student that stumps the most people will win a small prize at the end of the activity.   

So there you have it!  Those are the four activities we'll get started on during the first week of classes this year.  What activities do you have students complete that first week?

Mme Jones