The first day of school is rapidly approaching and while I'm the type of teacher that has thought about the upcoming school year all summer long, my 1st day plans are still not 100% finalized yet.
Of two things I am entirely sure I am doing: 1)Order of Operations Seat Finder I used this last year and I loved it! Students are doing math as soon as they walk in my door. I hand students a question card as they walk in the door and they need to simplify the expression and find the corresponding seat number. Some students found their seats quickly and others struggled. Students naturally helped each other out. I only had one instance where a student simplified incorrectly, but it led to some good mathematical discourse and error analysis on day 1! 2) Sara VanderWerf's Name Tents (linked here) I did not use these last year as I knew most of my students from the previous year. I'm excited to use these this year and really commit to strong relationships with all of my students from the very beginning. I like that they can get started on this as soon as they find their seat, too. Here's where I have options. I know I want to do math. I know I want to engage and encourage all students. I don't know what that looks like yet. Some ideas I've tossed around:
Which do you prefer? What other suggestions do you have?
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One of the things that frustrated me the most last year was that students had no ownership over classroom supplies and therefore did not take care of them. On normal days I was efficient at policing students to put away colored pencils and glue sticks but I dreaded coming back from being out because I knew there would be supplies all over the place. And, I had to fight the never ending battle of digging into student desks where to find the missing calculators, glue sticks, rulers and scissors. (I wish I had pictures of my desks to show you, but imagine those desks from elementary school where you can store your supplies inside the desk itself.) My first year, I didn't miss a day of school until the end of January for a professional development day and didn't have a sick day until March. (Yes, you read that right!) School hasn't even started yet and I know of three days that I will be out of the classroom for professional development in the first semester alone. So, this procedure is being implemented in part to combat the mess I faced last year when returning from days out. I first read about this procedure while researching for a TEAM module last year. TEAM is the mentor program that Connecticut has implemented to help new teachers. It's mandatory for new teachers with 5 modules designed to be completed in 2 years. I first came across this idea on the blog purpleprontopups.wordpress.com via pinterest. I had faced a similar struggle of tons of class time being wasted with passing out and collecting materials in addition to the mess. I bought a set of 24 pencil pouches on amazon for $24.99 and labeled then as such. My plan is to include scissors, glue stick, pencil, eraser, highlighter, and some markers or colored pencils in each pouch also labeled with the number. Each student will be assigned a number that will be used for these pouches as well as our graphing calculators. Instead of attaching these to the desks, I plan to make a bulletin board out of it. I will teach students to grab their pouch and calculator at the start of class and that all must be returned before anyone can leave. Having it on a bulletin board makes it so I can easily see who hasn't returned their materials yet. I also like the clear fronts and the bright colors of the pouches. Unfortunately, I bought these before receiving my class rosters and found out that one of my classes has 25 students in it. :( So, #25 will have to deal with a lonely black case I have in my classroom. I foresee some problems already with this system but I am excited to see how it works in my classroom! I will post an update sometime in September when we've been using them regularly. I've been debating for most of the summer on whether or not to start a blog. I love reading blogs (Sarah Carter's mathequalslove is an inspiration!) and I love the idea of documenting successes and failures in a permanent, public way. Historically, however, I have been AWFUL at keeping journals. Obviously, I've decided to give it a try, hoping that readers will keep me accountable! haha! I've spent a lot of time reading blogs, twitter posts and generally exploring the #MTBoS community over the past couple of weeks. I'm in awe of some of the teachers' creativity and slightly jealous of teachers setting up their classrooms! My school has been hard at work ALL summer putting in an HVAC system (hallelujah!) and has therefore restricted access to the school until recently. My classroom is not ready for me yet so I'm anxiously awaiting the email telling me can finally unpack the boxes and prepare for my second year! Until then, I'm stockpiling my spoils and making sure all my procedures and plans for the first two weeks are ready to go! To finish off this first blog post, I wanted to list my goals for the year. I'll do a post later reflecting on my fantastic first year, but these are the three areas I know I want to work on this year: consistent start of class routines, intervention and extension plans and meaningful, productive group work.
Goal 1: Successfully integrate meaningful daily warm-ups and journals that will provide formative assessment for both of us. Goal 2: Use the daily intervention/extension time intentionally to both provide support for struggling students and give all students the opportunity to learn math beyond the standards. Goal 3: Teach students how to work in a group and use group work to have successful student-led lessons. |
AuthorI teach 8th grade math in Connecticut. This is my 3rd year teaching! Archives
August 2017
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