First Week Plans - Academic Classes

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 only two days to do a whirlwind, introduction to logic tables and truth value.  So I can really not afford to have any non-instructional days.

Fingers crossed that I'll be in school for the first few days.  Here is my plan in that case.  I'll worry about the alternative if my postponement is declined.

Day 1:

• Students pick up beginning of the year documents and start working on prerequisite review packet while I'm greeting students with high fives in the hallway.
• Introduce myself
• Take attendance & begin learning to pronounce names
• Touch on some of syllabus including standards based grading and graphing calculators
• Notes on the first section (direct variation in algebra 2 and points, lines, and planes in geometry)
• Teach how to and fill in progress monitoring form

Day 2:

• Brief description of hybrid learning
• Announce first of weekly cumulative quizzes
• Create student accounts at Schoology, EdPuzzle & Khan Academy
• Notes on the second section (equations of parallel and perpendicular lines in algebra 2 and naming segments, lines, and rays in geometry)
• Fill in progress monitoring form

Day 3:

• Assign collaborative groups for the first few weeks of school
• Sign out books
• Notes on third section (solving linear systems by substitution in algebra 2 and segment/angle addition postulates in geometry)
• Fill in progress monitoring form

Day 4:

• Teach how to use folder system to turn in work daily
• Teach how to pick up materials for group work
• Group work activity (direct variation domino activity for algebra 2 and notation activity for geometry)
• Fill in progress monitoring form

Day 5:  Begin first official rotation on hybrid learning.