Mathsational

This is week two of the Sunday Funday blogging initiative.  It's never too late to join in!  You can read more about the challenge here if you like. Last week, we wrote about our goals for the year .  I touched on my first day plans at that time, but here is a bit more info. I mentioned in the last Sunday Funday post that I wanted to begin incorporating HyperDocs as a way for students to be engaged in independent work while pull daily small groups.  Here is the HyperDoc that I'll use on the first day of school for my students to get to know me and each other. I got the idea for the Meet me by Slides activity from one of Alice Keeler's books.  I read all three this summer, back-to-back.  So I'm having trouble recall which book it was. They were all good by the way. Even though I don't intend on using Google Classroom and will only have student access to iPads for the most part, I was still able to get a ton of ideas from these thr...

I typically spread my course info and getting to know you type stuff throughout the first four days of class.  I then save the second half of each class for actual content.  I feel like I do better to set up the expectations for the class if my students see content and have a homework assignment from day 1. That said, we have a class called 'primetime' at my school.  This is basically like a home room, but we only meet 9 times per year.  We meet for progress reports and report cards as well as other special information (graduation practice info, locker cleanout, etc) throughout the year.  I will be meeting with this group for two hours on the first day of school.  One hour of that time is for class meetings and the other half is planned by the teacher.  Typically we read important passages in the handbook and give out school documents (free and reduced lunch, picture day, yearbook order forms, parking pass applications, and such). This year, I was ...

I'm really not a fan of icebreakers.  I don't like for kids to feel uncomfortable and many icebreakers feel that way.  This is an activity that I do most years with all of my classes at some point during the first week of school, typically around day 3.  I'm careful to avoid the words 'fun' or 'game' in general because I don't like to hear kids say "I thought this was supposed to be fun." or "This is a dumb game." I call this activity "I Like."  The entire class sits in a circle facing inward, either on the floor or in chairs.  If anyone is wearing a skirt or dress, then chairs are better.  I usually start by standing up and saying something such as "I like to ride roller coasters."  Then everyone in the class that also likes to ride roller coasters stands up.  After about 3 seconds the person to my left either stands or remains standing and says something such as "I like pizza."  Then everyone tha...

Oh how I wish I could be seriously planning for my first few days of classes.  I just got summoned to district jury duty.  This will be the fourth time that I have had jury duty.  Last year, I actually got called to local court twice in five months.  I was not all that worried about the second call because I know I was excused for a year.  When I called to let them know that I had just served, the lady on the phone was surprised to find that my name was in the pool three times.  I'm under the impression she fixed that, but who knows.  I wrote to the court to request a postponement until next summer.  At the very least, any time that is not during the first few days of school.  I certainly don't want to leave a substitute in charge of building a classroom culture for me during those very important first few days of class. I also have a jam packed curriculum, especially in algebra 2.  This past year, I messed up with pacing and had ...