I love the first day of school! Because I teach the same students year after year, the first day is a reunion day for most of us. This year, I only have two students that I’ve never taught before. Everyone else I already know! For one group, this is their 5th year in my class, and another group is starting their 4th year with me. Because of that, there is no need to spend time getting to know me or my classroom. We just skimmed the syllabus. I did add something new this year on my syllabus, so I had to talk about that for a few minutes. I decided to add a section where I told the parents about Twitter and how I was also blogging this year. I have them choose to what extent I can share pictures of their children. I am very anxious to see the responses I get there! After all of the housekeeping stuff, we did two activities I’ve never done, but I was so excited to try!
A few weeks ago I exchanged a few tweets with Bob Janes (@mrjanesmath) about the 4-4’s activity. THEN, at our back to school PD week, our middle school curriculum coordinator shared it with all of us. I was ready to try it! So we did. And man, was I blown away!! I teach 6th grade, 8th grade, Geometry and Algebra 2. Here is how three groups did:
Shout out to 3rd hour for finding ways to solve for all numbers 1-20! Because I had never done this activity, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen! Turns out, I was thrilled!!! They did excellent!! My favorite thing about this activity is that it worked for all the different levels I teach! I love comparing the work of an Algebra II student with a 6th grade student. There were some super conversations happening today… on the first day of school! Win!!
The other activity we did was writing a #MathIs tweet. I got the idea from Sarah Carter’s blog (https://mathequalslove.blogspot.com/2012/08/first-day-of-school-plans.html). My students know I’m all about some Twitter, so it was a fun little activity to get their creative juices flowing. Pictured below are a few of the tweets I received:
I’m very fortunate that many of my students really enjoy math, and these tweets tell me it’s going to be an exciting year!
Another first day complete!!
Sassafracs 