First Day Fun!

The rules and procedures can wait a day😉. 

 Engage that new class of students on Day 1

Try this activity to make those first days more fun!

No student wants to spend the entire first day of school learning about classroom rules and procedures every time he/she enters another teacher's classroom.  And how boring for us to spend the entire first day going over that?  Although I would never underestimate the importance of establishing rules and procedures, and even modeling those procedures, I have found, after all these years, that the rules and procedures can wait a day.  Here is what I do to make day 1 a great experience for all...

Introduce yourself and of course, let students know how happy you are to meet them. Say the name of each new student as you meet him/her and make sure each student has a seat. Let students know that for the activity you are about to present, you expect them to be cooperative, respectful (and have some fun!). 

Activity 1: Making some lists

I start with this simple partner or small group activity, and a simple timer. You can use your phone for this or a fun online timer. 

Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store to access this activity. If students have their own devices, you can use the Google Slides Add-on called Pear Deck. If you are using Pear Deck, students will need to go to Joinpd.com and enter the code you received when you started the lesson.  Without Pear Deck, you can simply display each Google Slide on your projector or share the presentation slides with the class, and the students can generate their answers on a paper list. Each slide asks the students to generate a list in response to a question.  For example: How many sports can your group think of? How many vegetables can you group name? What are your group's top Pet Peeves?, etc.  

Set the timer for a minute, two minutes, maybe even three.  When time is up, there are so many ways to allow students to share.  If you are using Pear Deck, you can share students' responses with the entire class to see which group came up with the most items.  You can search for the most unusual item or find the item that appeared in lists the most.  All the while, students are engaged, waiting to see if their group "won" each round, or if their suggestion was the most unusual, etc. 

What a fun way to get to know something about those students!

Teach on, Friends! The world needs you! 

Stacy