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Let’s be honest. The first three-five days of school are nerve-wracking for a teacher. I am so nervous, never knowing what to expect. It’s hard for me to eat, sleep, or even think those first few days. I obsess over those first few days for weeks! I want to make sure EVERY SINGLE rule/expectation is modeled for my students. Thank goodness my district only has a three-day week the first week or I am pretty sure I wouldn’t survive the whole week!
My goal this year is to try to enjoy 1.) my summer, and 2.) my first week of school. I want to relax and focus on really getting to know my students. I decided to revamp my first week of school a little bit. I will have a lot of the same students as they go from 5th to 6th grade, so they need some new activities too. So far I have 5 activities I have made for them. Below, I am going to describe these resources, and then show you what I want my first three days to look like.
Design Your Own Water Bottle Getting to Know You Activity – My students love stickers. I give them out all year as rewards on competitions, good grades, etc. My students love putting their stickers on their reusable water bottles. By the end of the year, they have quite the collection. I decided to turn this into a fun getting to know you activity. Students simply design their water bottle with “stickers” that represent them. They then talk about their stickers and why they chose them.
Back to School Scattergories Team Building Activity – I have been using this team building activity since I was in college. However, I never had a template for it; rather I would have students just list A-Z on a sheet of paper. This is much nicer. I have also added a list of 39 topics so you can use this as a brain break all year long! My goal is to laminate one for each group so they are ready to go for the first week of school!
Back to School About Me Four Corners Activity – This Back to School activity is not just a way to learn about your students, it doubles as a discussion on multiple intelligences. I believe it is important for students to understand that there are multiple ways to be intelligent. By the time students get into 5th and 6th grade, they have formed beliefs about their strengths and weaknesses. I believe it’s valuable for students to understand that they all have unique characteristics and that it takes all of our strengths together to really make class great!
Back to School/First Week of School Doodle Rules and Expectations – I understand how important it is to model appropriate norms for students. I also know that going over the rules and expectations can be like a Charlie Brown teacher moment. So I decided to give my students a resource of our rules and expectations that they can keep in their binder the whole year! There are two versions in this resource: a pre-filled one and a blank one.
Back to School/Which is Greater? Activity – Students do a lot of comparing numbers in 5th grade math. They have to understand the > and < symbols to compare fractions and decimals. My students do fine with the symbols themselves (they love the “alligator eats the bigger number” method); however, when it comes to vocalizing the symbols as “greater than” or “less than” my students sometimes struggle. Once students complete their assignment by using >,<, or = to signs, you can then go around the room and have them state “The beach is greater than amusements parks,” etc. This gets them using the math vocabulary outside of math!
So how do I plan on putting this all together. Please keep in mind that I have 85 minute classes to fill so what I can accomplish will look different than what you may be able to in your classroom.
First Week of School Outline:
Day 1
Complete the “Water Bottle Getting to Know You Activity”
Go over rules and expectations with my “Doodle Notes Activity”
Discuss group expectations
Complete a rich math task. I find all of mine in the book “Building Thinking Classrooms.”
Day 2
“Back to School Four Corners Activity”
Recap group expectations
Complete a team building exercise from my “Team Building Scattergories Activity”
Complete a rich math task from “Building Thinking Classrooms”
Day 3
“Back to School: Which is Greater? Activity”
Recap group expectations/rules
Complete a Mathological Liar Activity – My goal is to choose a 4th grade skill for grade 5 and a 5th grade skill for grade 6. However, I also bought grade 6 to play throughout the year.
So you’ve made it through the first week of school – Now what?
If you want to keep engagement up for your 5th/6th grade math classrooms, try using some of my Boom Cards. Learn more about them here.
