Just maybe, over the summer, sitting on the patio, paddling in a canoe, relaxing in a deck chair, watching the sunset, running, or whatever it is you do, you might think about school. I always find that my mind drifts there every once in a while, and often a lot of my deep planning gets done—the ideas that anchor me.
Which day of the year will you have all eyes on you? The keenest students? The least amount of student misbehaviour? The first day of school. So, try thinking about how you can capitalize on that to engage your students in the deep thinking and exciting work you want them to do. Often we think, as teachers, that we have to set down all the expectations on the first day of school or the rest of the year will be chaos. You do have to live and model your expectations, but I’m not sure you need to talk about them. Maybe that class agreement is something to save until later in the first week. By then, I suspect your students will have already figured out your expectations and the activity will go a lot faster.
Let’s think about the first day of school from a student’s point of view. They are excited to be back and meet their new teacher and see their friends. But frequently it is a day of “sit and get”: one teacher after another going over the rules and expectations. Really, our rules aren’t any different than last year’s rules. And most rules are self-evident. We don’t really need to talk a lot about keeping your locker tidy since I doubt any of our students would think that our expectation was to do otherwise (although they may act that way over the course of the year!).
Why not have that first interaction with your students be challenging? Be engaging? Be creative? Set the tone for how learning will take place in your classroom. Pose a question, get them creating or writing or exploring or problem-solving. Hook your students in right away. Here are a few ideas:
Read aloud the best short story you know, or the first chapter of the read aloud.
Introduce writer’s workshop with idea generation activities so that they are itching to start writing. You could even start writing. Do a quick write about what you didn’t do this summer, or the best small moment, or what you wished you had done.
Introduce a complex but open ended problem such as “What is all the math you can think of to do with this box of smarties?” Or, “If our whole school joined hands would we be able to go around the whole building (and then try it at the end of the week)?” Or, “What are all the different ways we could arrange the desks in this classroom? Why are the advantages and disadvantages?” Check out these sites for some great problems: http://learn.fi.edu/school/math2/ or www.estimation180.com or http://www.101qs.com/
Get in teams and create an obstacle course that will challenge the rest of the students? Or, read the rules to Harry Potter’s Quidditch and figure out how to create your own version of the game (we don’t have flying broomsticks).
Have some equipment available and have students figure out how to move an object from point A to point B without carrying it. Or, review structures, movement and friction by having groups create a marble maze that goes the slowest. Or, provide students with a stack of newspapers and masking tape with the challenge of building a piece of furniture.
Put out a variety of art supplies and have students begin to experiment with texture and line with mixed media. Have them create and critique a piece in the first week that can then be their jumping off point for the remainder of the year: what did they like? What would they want to do differently?
In any subject present a problem to solve by the end of the week.
Start the year with a week of genius hour where students can learn about and present about a passion of theirs.
Have students create a class song on their instruments or in garage band. Show them a clip from “Stomp” and have students create their own number.
I am sure for your subject area you have thousands of ideas. Often I hear teachers saying that we need to ease into school. Maybe that is not true. Maybe we should jump in with both feet and just start. When our students go home after the first day of school, we want them to go home full of excitement, joy and enthusiasm for learning. It is up to us to create those conditions. The first day of school could be the best day ever..until the second day of school.
I will reprint this blog at the end of August, but I thought that just maybe you might give the first day of school some thought before then…or not. Enjoy your summer.
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