Hi, it's Roisin from Little Learner Toolbox! Did I really say snowball fun
in fall? Yes! Well, in your classroom at least. One great way to get students
on their feet, mingling and meeting new friends, is to have some snowball fun
in your classroom. I love snowball fights, or general snowball fun in the
classroom. There is something about writing down your thoughts and then
throwing your ideas around the classroom (quite literally), that students just
love! It is perfect as an icebreaker and a way to get students mingling and
sharing ideas at the start of the year (Snowball fights are also a great tool
for reflection throughout the year).
What
to do:
The
general idea for snowball fun or a snowball fight is pretty simple. You provide
your students withblank pieces of paper
and pencils.Students then write down
answers to questions or prompts that you ask them, on pieces of paper. They
scrunch up the paper into a small ‘snowball’. When everyone is ready they throw
their snowball across the classroom.Students then reach down and pick up a snowball that had landed near
them. They throw that snowball. They repeat this several times, until the
snowballs are well and truly mixed up, and your students are laughing and
generally having a good time. When you feel your class are ready, ask your
students to pick up a snowball near to them and look at it.
Questions
or prompts you could ask at the start of the year include:
1.
Write 3 fun facts about yourself
2.. One
thing people might not know about you is….
3.
One thing you are looking forward to this year is…..
4.
One thing that helps you to learn is when……
5.
One burning question you would like to ask about this year is…..
One
fun thing to do, when you ask students to share fun facts about themselves, or
something people might not know about them, is to have students find the author
of the snowball, and then introduce them to the class. You
may or may not ask your students to write their name on their snowball before
they throw it. The snowballs could be signed
(making it easy to find them), or the snowballs could be unsigned, and then
students have to hunt for the original author before they can introduce
them.
Snowball
fun in the classroom can also be used as an opportunity for students to share
their questions or thoughts about thestart of the new year anonymously. This can be a nice way to begin
establishing a culture where students feel that their opinions and questions
are valued.
Have
a wonderful start of the year with your classes! If you are looking for more
start of the year activities you might like:
Why I hate the first day of school and how I learned to enjoy it.
Personally I used to hate the first day of school. Other teachers loved it, I hated it. It was awkward, I didn't know my students, they didn't know me...it was just icky. When I first started teaching I would go through my rules and procedures and watch as my students would fall asleep, get intimidated, or just look miserable. What they didn't know is that I was even more miserable. Ick.
I had to figure out a way to make it more enjoyable. I was tired of being in tears, literally, at the end of every first day. So I decided to bag the rules and procedures. We could go through that stuff later. I wanted to have fun. I wanted my students to have fun and I wanted to set a creative atmosphere in my room without losing control.
Here are some activities that saved me from hating that first day.
5 Circles and 10 Lines Activity:
I hand out 10" x 10" squares of drawing paper, and show this powerpoint presentation to the students.
I tell them to turn their paper over and I say:
"We are going to start this class with a creative exercise, because that
is what art is all about. Creativity. This should be fun, so try not to stress
too much about it, but carefully consider your options and try to come up with
a fun or interesting solution to the following prompt. "
It looks like that same seller has some bigger workbooks that can be used throughout the year. Very cool printables and creativity boosters!
Doodle Activity
Think outside the line!
Your assignment is to draw a doodle incorporating the pre-existing line into your doodle. There is no right or wrong, good or bad, just have fun and allow yourself to be creative. Don’t look for the easy way out, make your brain explore all the possibilities! Any orientation whether vertical, horizontal, upside down or sideways is acceptable!
Here is that lesson if you want to grab it.
Truly these lessons helped me to turn the first day of school from a chore, to an enjoyable experience for both me and my students. I hope you find something that works well for you and your students. Have a wonderful year!
Have you had it yet? Is it next week? Or still a few weeks off?
Hi, I’m Jessica from What I Have Learned. How many first days of school have you had as a teacher? Do you still get nervous at the start of every year?
I remember my first day of teaching my first year. I started my career in fifth grade. I had butterflies in my stomach that first day. I had planned everything the best that I knew how, but really I had no clue what I was doing!
In came 28 fifth graders, most of whom where pretty close to my size! I don’t remember exactly what we did that day. Most likely some name games, getting to know you activities, and team building games. Fast forward 16 years and I can tell you my first days start way smoother than my first first day of teaching!
Regardless of whether your first day of school is, next week or a few weeks away, you'll want to be sure you few key things in place.
First Thing in the Morning
Have something for students to do when they walk in the door available on their desks so that you have time to greet each student and talk to parents.
If you teach kindergarten and your school allows it, I encourage you to invite parents in and help their child get settled. Making a good home / school connection is important and one way to get a good start is on the first day when parents are handing their children off to you.
When my students come in the classroom, they find puzzle piece on their desks with a box of crayons. I don’t put anything else on students’ desks yet. You’ll find out why in a bit.
On the board are a basic set of directions. Students are to write their name on their puzzle piece in large letters (sometimes I’ll write their name ahead of time) and color the puzzle piece so that there is no white space left.
This puzzle piece is part of my Community Building Puzzle. We don’t put together the puzzle quite yet, but since the pieces are not colored, we are ready to put them together later that afternoon or if we have some down time later on in the week.
Seating Arrangements (or the lack of)
I mentioned earlier that I don’t put anything but the puzzle piece and crayons on students’ desks. Why?
One, I let students sit wherever they want to on the first day. Shocking, I know. I do this because I don’t know the students yet, but for the most part, unless you teach kindergarten, they know each other. I want to see who students sit next to and choose to talk to. I want to sit back and observe how they choose to interact with one another. This gives me a pretty good idea of classroom dynamics and personalities. On the first day, students are usually so nervous that they don’t act out too much, but you can get an idea of the kinds of choices they make.
The other reason I don’t put things on students desks is that I want an opportunity to hand out materials myself. Partly so I can talk about how to use the materials and care for them, but also so that I can walk around and get to know the names and faces of each student. When I’m handing out pencil boxes, notebooks, folders, etc. I’m getting multiple opportunities to meet each student for a couple seconds as I drop of the materials I say each name every chance I get. By the end of the day I have all student names and faces memorized.
I also don’t want overwhelm students with too much stuff on the first day that we don’t necessarily need until later in the week. I hold onto supplies, like notebooks and folders, and hand them out as we’re engaging in the activity that requires that supply.
Play a Name Game
There are tons of name games. Play one. Any one. Just do one.
As I mentioned earlier, every opportunity you have to say and interact with students names will help you learn them that much better. Once you learn their names, your brain can move onto other things, like figuring out their learning styles and personalities.
Name games also help students learn each others’ names. For smaller students, make it simple. For older students, make it more complicated. Either way, make it FUN!
Don’t Forget the Rules
Go slow. Be deliberate. Very deliberate. Explain EVERYTHING. To the point where you think you’re going overboard. Every opportunity you get, go over how to do something both in the classroom and outside of the classroom. Chorally repeat them. Model them. Practice them.
Keep in mind those areas outside the classroom, like the playground, bathroom, hallways, etc. How do you want students to behave in those areas? Teach. Model. Practice. Repeat.
Cooperative Learning Activities & Icebreakers
Plan a lot of them. Plan more than you will need. You never know when you might have a little extra time to throw one in. The first couple days / weeks of school are all about learning how to get along together in the classroom. Use every opportunity to build community and teach students how to get along with one another. It will pay off in the long run, later in the year.
Below are some of my favorite books that walk you through setting up your classroom for the first couple weeks of school. The below links are affiliate links.
Keys to the Elementary Classroom I have used every year since I first started teaching. It is filled with awesome suggestions on how to set up your classroom, create a daily schedule, and what to do during those first few weeks.
Reaching All by Creating Tribes Learning Communities has excellent cooperative learning activities for all grade levels. It's much more than just cooperative learning activities, but those are what I use from it.
Are you an experienced teacher? What tips and suggestions do you have for the first day of school? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below.
The first day of school is full of so many things: anticipation, wide-eyes, school supplies, new faces, maybe a few butterflies. And I'm notorious for trying to get too much done on the first day...
I want to get to know my students.
I want them to get to know each other.
I want them to unpack their school supplies.
I want to show them around the classroom.
I want to teach them procedures, and more procedures, and more procedures.
And not only do I never fit it all in the first day, the tone I set while trying, the "mood" of the room, if you will, is not exactly what I intend it to be.
On a normal, middle-of-the-year day, I want my students to come into my room in the morning knowing it is a calm place, a cooperative place, a place where we work hard, try new things, and have fun.
A couple of years ago, I asked myself a question I thought was a bit unrealistic: Could I get that "middle-of-the-year" tone started within the first ten minutes of the first day of school? Could I find a way to slow down, shove my laundry list of activities and procedures aside temporarily, and show my students right from the get-go what this classroom should look like, sound like, and feel like?
I took on the challenge.
The thing is, it's not something that I get a lot of chances to try. I mean, really, I get ONE first-day-of-school per year. So, after a couple of good cracks at it, here is what I've found to work for setting the tone in the first ten minutes of the first day of school.
Prior to students arriving, I put a freshly sharpened pencil at each student's desk, as well as a "first task" that students will work on when they come in. For me, I try to make this first task something that can be done independently and is extremely low-stress. I don't want to have to explain anything to students about how to do their first task. A "Finish the Picture" like the one below works pretty well for third grade.
(Grab six free "finish the picture" tasks on THIS updated version of my post!)
As each student enters my classroom on the first day, I greet them warmly, and then I ask them to keep their backpack zipped up and to hang it on their cubby hook, then to find their seat and get started.
Giving students a simple but engaging task to do at their seat frees me up to start making personal connections with individual students right away.
Still within the first ten minutes, my whole class is sitting at their seats, drawing away, with a nice little hum going. Meanwhile, I'm walking around, kneeling down at different table groups, asking students how they are feeling about third grade, who they already know, what they are going to eat for lunch, and so on.
After a few minutes, I ask the class to share their drawings with their table groups and to talk about how their drawings are alike and different. In the grand scheme of things, I really don't care one bit about these drawings. It's the talking I want. Communicating with each other right off the bat about their ideas.
Pretty soon, I'll start introducing some of our classroom procedures, and eventually I'll let them go unpack their shiny new backpacks. But in the first ten minutes, I've shown my students that we get started working right away, that I care about them and what they have to say, and that sharing our ideas and thinking with each other happens a lot.
UPDATE: Wow, I never would have guessed this little idea would have picked up so much steam. Thanks! You can pick up SIX "Finish the Picture" pages, totally free, by clicking HERE.
