The first week of school can be the most hectic with the pressure of needing to learn all of your students' names, making sure everyone settles in and is taken care of, amongst the many other things that need to be taken care of, whew! The first few days provide a time for you to connect with your students and to create cohesive bonds between your students before diving into your curriculum. It is the time for first impressions, to set the tone, and the opportunity for you to show your students they will enjoy learning in your classroom. You can have fun with your students while fitting in a math lesson or two, just by getting to know them better!
So many names, so little time!
If you have trouble remembering all of your students' names the first week of school, don't worry, I did too! Learning a hundred names took time and I used to have to rely heavily on my seating chart. Then I discovered an activity and tool that has made my life so much easier—foldable personalized nametags! I realized my students have always enjoyed foldable activities. After seeing how engaged my students were while creating their name tags, I realized this activity is DEFINITELY the way to go to start the school year! I no longer had to look down at my seating chart to call out a name. I spoke directly to students without wasting a second of my time and they felt like I already knew who they were. Like them, I also make a nametag for myself and keep it on my desk for the rest of the year.
Make It A FUN First Day of School!
For our first day of school, we would spend the better part of the day creating the name tags, going around the class introducing ourselves, and sharing our interests. If time permitted, we would also have sets of categorical data lined up for us to display on a graph. Usually we get to graphing our birthdays - a topic that was quite interesting to my students (perhaps in anticipation of parties?) - allowing us to quickly see which months had the most birthdays and whose birthdays were in the same months. Already, my students were engaged in a math activity. Their first lesson? Math is EVERYWHERE, even in this exercise of introductions! Not only did this activity help me have one less thing to worry about in the classroom, but it also gave my students the opportunity to find out more information about me, my birthday, and my favorite things, which helped them feel more at ease.
Wait until the second day to go over the rules!
This is a great way to introduce yourself and to get to know your students, but also a fun way to review how to display data! You can discuss what type of graph is best to display categorical data and then create a bar graph or pictograph to depict the class data. My students and I make predictions about our class data, then we collect the data and display the data on bar graphs on the board. They were having fun and learning math on the first day without realizing it!
The years I had a Smartboard, I would just take a screen shot to save the information and print it out to post on my bulletin board. Before that, I made a poster size copy of the graphs and took pictures to save our work. If we had time, I had my students analyze the data and make up questions using the information we gathered. I choose to do this activity on the first day of school instead of going over classroom rules and the supply list because it helps me bond with my students and develop a rapport from day one.
Your students want to get to know you.
Try using this activity to connect with your students this year. When I first started this activity, I used construction paper and markers. Since then, I have designed a worksheet that folds into a nametag so that my activity would flow better and we would be able to get to the graphing part of the lesson sooner. Have fun getting to know your students. Your students will enjoy learning about you.
Wishing you a fun-filled successful start to your new school year!
