Man, what a week!
I've never started school on a Monday before as a teacher. Our school district starts on a Thursday, and so I have always started on a Thursday. I always thought it was a little weird, but now I get it. I totally get it. This has been the longest week ever and I have blisters on my poor little toes.
It's been really good, though! I'm working on building connections with all of my students (just shy of 200) by using the name tents from Sara Van Der Werf. It's going so well, students are asking me all kinds of questions and I get to know them better as well! The only problem is, it takes a long time to write all of the responses. Like, way more time than I thought. I also wish I had used cardstock because regular paper is just a little bit too flimsy But, I think they're going to be worth it.
I also used Sara's 100 numbers task the first day of school, which was amazing. The top response I got on Monday was "When are we going to do this again?" which is pretty awesome.
Tuesday we did the Back to School Footloose, but I actually just had the students stay in their desks and work together. I can tell these guys are already very nervous about getting answers wrong, so we're going to be working on growth mindset a lot this year for sure. In 47 minutes most students only finished about 5 or 6 problems. It was good, though, I learned a lot about my students just from those few questions and answers.
Wednesday we set up notebooks! I was very optimistic about the glue sponges, and it went really well, in every period except 5th, where students thought they needed to pick up the sponges, and 7th, who weren't even using the glue in class but a few kids decided to play around with it. All of my other classes were very responsible with the glue and did a super great job!
The table folders have been going great, too. I had students write their own names on sticky notes so it would be easier for me to see who's where at a glance, and I'm glad I did because I was able to make a seating chart from it and quickly take attendance this week. This has been such a time saver, especially in 2nd period where I'm supposed to do a head count and keep track of absences to a greater degree than other classes until enrollment settles down. I definitely recommend using full stick sticky notes because the regular ones keep flopping off, but I wouldn't give them to the kids since they are a bit more costly, so I'll have to figure that out exactly. Right now I'm just going to add them on as I change seating charts. The table folders have also been great for changing seats, I had to put my 7th period in assigned seats and it made it super easy for them to find where they are supposed to be. The only downside to the table folders is that is does require more prep, and if I'm given a stack of papers to hand out last minute I can't really use them, but it's not that big of a deal.
I do feel a bit overwhelmed already, I think because of all of the new stuff I'm trying, plus the longer than normal first week of school. It also doesn't help that the student Chromebooks were delayed, and I was planning on going paperless in my Computer Science class but can't because 10 of my kids didn't have Chromebooks the first 3 days, and 2 still don't because they ran out of Chromebooks. I'm super jealous of all of my colleagues at the elementary who have their Chromebooks already, because they have a class set instead of checking them out to the students.
But, overall it's been a great week, and I'm really looking forward to everything this year will bring!
I've never started school on a Monday before as a teacher. Our school district starts on a Thursday, and so I have always started on a Thursday. I always thought it was a little weird, but now I get it. I totally get it. This has been the longest week ever and I have blisters on my poor little toes.
It's been really good, though! I'm working on building connections with all of my students (just shy of 200) by using the name tents from Sara Van Der Werf. It's going so well, students are asking me all kinds of questions and I get to know them better as well! The only problem is, it takes a long time to write all of the responses. Like, way more time than I thought. I also wish I had used cardstock because regular paper is just a little bit too flimsy But, I think they're going to be worth it.
I also used Sara's 100 numbers task the first day of school, which was amazing. The top response I got on Monday was "When are we going to do this again?" which is pretty awesome.
Tuesday we did the Back to School Footloose, but I actually just had the students stay in their desks and work together. I can tell these guys are already very nervous about getting answers wrong, so we're going to be working on growth mindset a lot this year for sure. In 47 minutes most students only finished about 5 or 6 problems. It was good, though, I learned a lot about my students just from those few questions and answers.
Wednesday we set up notebooks! I was very optimistic about the glue sponges, and it went really well, in every period except 5th, where students thought they needed to pick up the sponges, and 7th, who weren't even using the glue in class but a few kids decided to play around with it. All of my other classes were very responsible with the glue and did a super great job!
The table folders have been going great, too. I had students write their own names on sticky notes so it would be easier for me to see who's where at a glance, and I'm glad I did because I was able to make a seating chart from it and quickly take attendance this week. This has been such a time saver, especially in 2nd period where I'm supposed to do a head count and keep track of absences to a greater degree than other classes until enrollment settles down. I definitely recommend using full stick sticky notes because the regular ones keep flopping off, but I wouldn't give them to the kids since they are a bit more costly, so I'll have to figure that out exactly. Right now I'm just going to add them on as I change seating charts. The table folders have also been great for changing seats, I had to put my 7th period in assigned seats and it made it super easy for them to find where they are supposed to be. The only downside to the table folders is that is does require more prep, and if I'm given a stack of papers to hand out last minute I can't really use them, but it's not that big of a deal.
I do feel a bit overwhelmed already, I think because of all of the new stuff I'm trying, plus the longer than normal first week of school. It also doesn't help that the student Chromebooks were delayed, and I was planning on going paperless in my Computer Science class but can't because 10 of my kids didn't have Chromebooks the first 3 days, and 2 still don't because they ran out of Chromebooks. I'm super jealous of all of my colleagues at the elementary who have their Chromebooks already, because they have a class set instead of checking them out to the students.
But, overall it's been a great week, and I'm really looking forward to everything this year will bring!
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