FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL
Mrs. Beauregard's class
(Bow-re-guard)
Day 1
I stand at the door and as my students walk in I ask their name and hand them a playing card that matches a playing card on their desks. Once the students settle in their seats I ask them to write 3 things on the sticky note at their desk. I want to know what classroom norms they want that will help them learn best. While they are thinking of three ideas, I pass around a ball with 52 numbers on it and ask the students their name again and one of the random 52 questions like "If you were a natural disaster, what would you be and why?" I will never make my students do something I wouldn't do, so I of course answer a random question as well. I talk about me, my experiences, and my family since I have 7 brothers and sisters all over the world. My sister Brittany the professional photographer, my sister Jackie the dental Hygienist assistant, my brother Stephen getting his PhD at Cal Tech, my brother Carsten going to Michigan State, my sister Samantha going to Utah State, my brother Skyler going to high school in Saudi Arabia, and my brother Julio going to middle school at Sierra. I also like to talk about my husband and son since my husband was my high school sweetheart and we've been together for 10 years, and my son Theodore Rex is less than a year old.
Photo by Brittany Miller
Before I move on to the syllabus and my classroom expectations I go to the students sticky notes. I assign them a group of 3 or 4 to pick the top three "norms" they want to have in the classroom and to select one person as their group writer and speaker. I have my own set of rules, but I am willing to allow a bend in my rules so the students have an ownership for their own classroom. Once the groups write the top 3 ideas I discuss and clarify what they want. Almost every class says food is important, some classes say they want to pick their own seats, some classes say being able to use their phone is important (after they are done with their work), Most classes ask for group work and for me to be clear with my instructions. Anything they did not discuss about what "norms" they wanted, I then talked about my classroom expectations with my tardy policy and late work. As much as syllabus stuff is a little boring, it is still important to set my standards high from day 1 with my students.
Day 2
Every year I ask my students to draw a scientist and I clarify that I want more than just a circle and lines. I always get about 3/4 of them drawn as Einstein looking scientists with crazy hair, lab coat, and a male. There's always 1 or 2 drawn as inanimate objects and a few with multiple people working together. Even though half my students are female, I only get a small amount of female scientists. While the students are drawing I instruct them to my website where they can click on a link to take a pretest on a Google Forms about what they know about what science is or is not. My classes average was a 52%, but that just means there is room for improvement.
QUIZ QUIZ TRADE
Even though I gave the students the Flinn Safety contract to read through for a quiz, I go over some of the most important safety rules with each class. My class does not have a fume hood, eye wash or shower station so some of the contract rules are important but do not necessarily apply to what we do in my class. I have a list of about 24 questions and answers on laminated cards. I hand each student a card and tell them they need to ask their neighbor the question they are holding and answer their neighbors question then trade cards and find a new person. This is a good review strategy about any topic and the students are able to get out of their seats and still learn.
Day 3
Friday is a short day and we see all 8 classes. For a warm up, I have students take a learning style survey on an Edutopia site. Since the site does not send me the results, I ask the students to show me their result and put a tally on the board next to the type of learner they are. I usually have a lot of visual and kinesthetic learners and some of my students are even surprised by their own results.
IAN
Today is the day we set up our Interactive Notebook (IAN). The students need to number their pages in their books, then their table of contents, then glue in their syllabus and safety contract so they can use them as reference. I keep a large Table of Contents at the front of the class that mirrors exactly what the students Table of Contents should look like. Though I am trying to go paperless, I still like using Interactive Notebooks.
