Activities for First Week of School

After going to bed at 7pm most days this week, I am finally well-rested enough to sit down and tell you about what we did! So, if you need some activities for first week of school, keep reading!

Day One – Birthdays and Polar Bear and Fish Inquiry 

I stood at the door to welcome students in and direct them to their seats! On the board, they had their first “Do Now” which instructed them to pick up a birthday cake from the basket at the front of the room.

When class started, I told them how the attendance question would work then I took attendance. Essentially, instead of saying “hear or present”, they respond with their answer to the attendance question! Something new I’m doing this year is “daily check-ins”. I give each table pair 1 minute to discuss the check-in question. When time is up, I ask for a few volunteers to share their picks!

After the check-in, I had students decorate their birthday cakes for their birthdays! Make a copy of the template here. They turned out so cute!

As students finished, they were instructed to come place their birthday cake in the folder for their birth month. I no longer have to dig through my birthday list to find student birthdays!! Yay!

Another new thing I did this year was celebrating summer birthdays on day one! All of the summer birthdays were able to pick something from the prize box (consisting of mini connect fours, mini Rubik’s cubes, and stickers). They were SO excited!!

We then started a Polar Bear and Fish Inquiry activity that works really well in science or math! You can read all about the activity here. I modified the activity by only giving my students one dice and they worked in pairs instead of groups. This activity was a bit hard for students, I realized that they needed a bit more guidance on “how to” take notes as they tried to figure out the rule. I also suggest planning to spend an entire 45 minute period of time on this! I loved to see how kids persevered through the activity!!

We finished up the class with a few This or That questions. I placed two slips of blue and green construction paper in each table’s box so students could just hold them up to answer!

Another thing I’m trying this year is an idea I saw in a Facebook group, it’s called “Reset”.

You may notice I also tell a joke at the end of class. I tell my students that they must laugh as if it’s the funniest joke they’ve ever heard. I get all of my fantastically funny jokes from this book. I’ll admit, the jokes are pretty terrible but I love them!!!

Day Two – Syllabus Quiz Activity and Investigate The Teacher

After the attendance question and daily check-in, we started our syllabus puzzle activity. (My personal fave) Read all about that here:  https://www.thesassymathteacher.com/syllabus-quiz/

After they finished their puzzle and took a syllabus quiz, they began the Investigate the Teacher activity! This was so much fun. The goal of this activity was to help my students get to know me by using clues. My clues included photos of me with my niece and nephews, so my students kept asking me if I was a Mrs. or a Ms. to determine if I had kids. LOL I thought it was quite funny when they also asked my age to decide if I was even “old enough” to have kids.

 Another clue was a map of Georgia, my jaw hit the floor when a kid asked if I was from Iowa. Iowa!!! Needless to say, the kids don’t know much about geography. 

Day Three – Cell-Fie Activity and Student Survey

Today, I had students do a digital Cell-fie Activity. (Sidenote: I’m teaching science this school year) One of the first tasks was to take a selfie using their laptop camera. This took much longer than I intended. For starters, don’t assume that kids know how to use a camera or Powerpoint. And two, HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO GET A 7TH GRADER ON CAMERA? They either took 100 photos until they could get the perfect shot or refused to take a real photo at all because they “hate the way they look”. After I assured them that I would be the only one seeing these photos, they finally gave in and took the selfie! Whew!!

The goal of this activity was to introduce them to cells while introducing themselves to me AND get familiar with using PowerPoint because in case you don’t know, I LOVE POWERPOINT. Their cell-fies ended up really cute! This activity was shared in a Facebook Group, I modified it just a bit! Make a copy here.

After students finished, I had them complete a student survey in Google Forms so I could learn even more about them! Check out the survey here.

Oh, I forgot to mention that in addition to attendance questions, daily check-ins and the joke, I sprinkled in “This or That” questions along with one of my favorite middle school icebreakers “Four Corners” throughout the week as quick brain breaks!

I also hid a sticker on one of the student chairs each day. If a student was sitting in the “lucky chair” they’d get a prize (sticker or Jolly Rancher)!

Oh and before you say, “Asia, you didn’t go over expectations and procedures!” I did! We talked about them briefly while they did the Syllabus Quiz and I sprinkled it in on the other days! I wanted to focus mostly on building relationships the first three days so I went over expectations and procedures as needed. 

Overall, the week went really well and I am so excited for this school year!!!