I am now entering my third year of teaching third grade (isn't that a golden birthday or something? I should have a party...). Because I have a bit of experience behind me now, I have a pretty solid idea of what I like to do the first week of school with my brand new third graders.
For the first time this coming school year, we are starting on a Monday. We usually start on a Thursday which gives us two good days to fall back into the routine of school, get to know each other, and do some fun fluffy stuff before diving into the rigor of things. So when I found out we were starting on Monday, I was a bit thrown off. But I have come to think of it as a (possibly) good thing! It gives me more time to stretch out those relaxed, first time, procedure filled days that are so important.
But you didn't come here to listen to me ramble like a recipe blog before the goods. So, here you have it. This is what I plan to do with my kids the first week.
Note: all of these activities are tried & true in my classroom and they all serve a purpose.
FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION ON THESE LESSON PLANS, SCROLL DOWN!
Happy Teaching!
8:20: Morning Activity
Students enter the room after I greet them at the door. I have met most of them at Meet the Teacher but the few I haven't met, I make sure to get their names. Inevitably, I will need to deal with student supplies and I will also need to make sure I know their home transportation so that I can get them the correct wristband (our school's transportation system the first few weeks of school.)
While I deal with these things, students find their name poster and begin working. I show them how the directions are on the morning slide (a routine that will carry all year) so they can get started right away. The good news about third graders is that most of them can read directions on the first day. Enough of them that they can help each other which frees you up to walk around and collect stuff and information.
8:50: Morning Meeting
I instruct students to leave their name posters at the table (I will do something with them later), push in their chairs, and meet in the morning meeting area I start morning meeting day one because it is the main way I build our classroom community and it's another thing we will do every day of the year. Our morning meeting is held in the heart of our room, the library space right in the middle. The leader and I sit on the couch and the students sit around on the rug. For the first day, I won't have a leader so I will run morning meeting.
We greet each other, introduce all our names (repeating them to make sure we've got them right), and I let kids who are comfortable sharing on the first day share out. Then, we do an activity.
An activity I love to do for our first morning meeting is called The Line Activity (better name pending). I put a big piece of butcher paper in the middle of us. Everybody sits around the edge of the paper and writes their name on the edge in front of them with a marker. Then, we take turns saying a fact about ourselves. If anyone else in the circle shares that fact with us, they draw a line from their name to the name of the person who shared. I usually start. So, I may say something like "I have a little brother" and everybody with a little brother will connect their name to mine. Students can share things like "I love video games", "I went on a vacation this summer", "I like math", "I have 2 dogs", etc. By the end of the activity, we can see all the connections our class has. I usually put the paper up for the first week to remind us that we are now a family, we all have connections, and we are here for the year to help each other.
9:20: About Mrs. Hurt/About the Class Slides
A fact you need to know about my classroom is that I do not assign seats. Ever.
Occasionally, a student may need their own space and that can happen (and it has!) but mostly, I do not assign spots. Our room has 3 tables, a teacher table, and a large central library area with a couch and rug. We also have a class set of clipboards, 3 lapboards, pillows, and chairs (and not the traditional sterile school ones - comfy ones). The amount of time my students sit all at tables is...minimal. In fact, after that first day, they only all sit at tables for the first ten minutes of the day. After that, we are either broken into small groups (with students sitting all over the room in different ways) or at the carpet for a mini-lesson (yes, I have 3rd graders sit at a carpet for lessons. No, none of them ever balk about it, they still need the focused space, and it works!)
So, while I go through the slides about me and our class, I let students sit around the room. Every few slides, a colorful MOVE slide will pop up, prompting students to get up and move in a certain way to another space. This does a few things. 1. It gets the kids moving which helps them pay attention to the information I need to give them and 2. It helps me see who my inherently responsible/calm kids are, who my bossy leaders are (they don't hide long), and who my troublemakers (they hide even less long) are.
After I've talked about me (and answered a million very personal questions), and gone over some procedures, I get out the iPads.
YES, I check out student iPads on day one for a very good reason.
Our class simply doesn't run without them...I don't know how to get my kids practicing our procedures and routines without the iPads...because we use iPads.
I will cover iPad check-out in another post. My one bit of advice is to make a specific set of iPad expectations and have students sign them.
9:40: Carousel of Expectations
This is one of my favorite activities for getting back to school. I put a question on 8 posters and tape them up around the room. Some good questions to use are:
- What are you excited to learn this year
- What is your favorite thing about school?
- What is a very important school rule?
- What was your favorite thing you did this summer?
- What did you love about ___ grade?
- What are you a little nervous about this year?
- What makes a good teacher?
- Why is school important?
As long as you pick some good, thought-provoking questions you are ready to go. I give students a small stack of sticky notes and explain the directions. I give them 1 minute at each poster and play music as they walk around. It's a great way to get kids engaged in something and get information about your class. Plus, you get a sense of student's writing abilities on day one.
After we finish, I gather the posters and we have a good conversation about some popular answers and how we want out class/year to run.
10:20: Icebreaker Quizizz
This is an activity for those of us with classroom technology (why oh why can't that be everyone!?) I love using apps that students will use all year for fun back to school activities. It gets them familiar with the apps/technology and also lets us have fun!
Quizizz is a wonderful app very similar to Kahoot...but with funny memes. Plus, students work through questions at their own pace. We use Quizizz all year for math and it's a relatively easy app for students to use. I like to get them on the app day one for a fun icebreaker quiz. I throw in a few easy academic questions they should know from the year before, some things about our school, some jokes, and even some procedures we have covered (to see who is paying attention! Prcoedure quizizz/kahoot is also another great idea for week 1)
10:45: Scramble Sentences
You can read about this year-long vocabulary activity here. This is another activity my kids will do every week of the school year, so it is good to practice early. I created 10 sentences under the title "Things I Want You To Know"
- I expect you to do your very best.
- We will do hard things and learn every day.
- You can always get better by practicing.
- What you think and feel matters to me.
- When things are hard, your brain is growing.
- We will spend a lot of time reading.
- I will expect you to work together.
- We will talk about our learning.
- I am so excited to be your teacher.
Each sentence has a missing word. Students work in pairs or groups of 3 and try to solve the sentences. Of course, I model and we do one together. Afterward, we go over each. sentence (because these really are things I want my kids to know!)
At this point, my students go to special classes, lunch, and recess (back to back to back) so we will spend some time practicing hallway, lunch, and recess.
1:30: Math - Figure Me Out
I like to keep our first afternoon simple. You'll notice I packed a lot of activity into the morning (and sometimes those things get pushed into the afternoon....you never know about time!). This is for a few reasons. Students aren't used to being back in school a whole day yet, and by the afternoon they are a little antsy. Plus, the dreaded end of the day transportation dismissal time is coming and it is stressful for everyone (and long on day one!)
My favorite activity that incorporates math but isn't too dauting is Figure Me Out. You've seen it before! First, I have students figure me out.
Students love to know personal information about their new teacher (seriously, that's like their currency) so there's a lot of buy-in. And again, I get some quick anecdotal information on student's math skills (as well as their working skills!).
After students figure ME out, they get their work on their own. I let them use sticky notes to first write down their answers (learned this the hard way, they need it written down somewhere) and then encourage them to get creative with their math (an important skill in my philosophy of mathematics education)!
Once enough of them have finished, I let them walk around and trade to see how many classmates they can figure out.
3:00: Read Aloud
We always end our day with read aloud and the first day isn't any different. I love reading How Not to Start Third Grade. It's a funny book and students relate to it. Plus, they've nearly already survived the first day so they can feel much better than the character in the book.
After our read aloud, we start dismissal (after some prayers) and get the kiddos home safe, hoping they had a great first day!
There are my plans for the very first day of school!
COME BACK SOON FOR DAYS TWO, THREE, FOUR, AND FIVE!
COME BACK SOON FOR DAYS TWO, THREE, FOUR, AND FIVE!
Happy Teaching!
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