When I was a full-time teacher in the classroom, and not a tech coach, the first week of school meant rules and expectations. Here’s the syllabus, what you can and can’t do in class, and starting content on the very first day. Thankfully, in the past 10 years, there’s been a shift towards building relationships with students first instead of jumping straight into content and classroom procedures. I’m all for it as it truly builds trust with your students!
For several years, I’ve curated first-week lesson ideas shared by educators on social media and the web. I look for the type of lesson ideas I would have loved to do with my students and are more than just icebreakers. Below are the newest ideas I’ve added to my growing spreadsheet:
Email My Teacher
Helping students understand how to appropriately email teachers is one of the top priorities I hear teachers talk about every year. In this lesson, walk students through each step and then have them show what they’ve learned by sending you an email introducing themselves, and answering questions such as:
- What are you passionate about?
- How was your first day of school?
- What questions do you have for your teacher?
- What are your goals this year?
- What will success look like for you at the end of the year?
If you want to add more to this lesson, check out the resources TCEA has shared about teaching students how to email a teacher.
Opening Day Breakout Challenge
Tyler Rablin has created an activity that takes the idea of building skills and gamifying it into a Breakout Challenge. He takes 4 to 5 key skills students need to learn during the year and has them complete challenges to earn combinations into the breakout box. In the post below, he explains the basic procedures and reasoning behind the activities selected:
I enjoy that the skills students are learning will work both in and out of the classroom.
Building Community Through Class Values
In this activity by Marcus Luther, students focus on values and how they are similar and different from each other. I like how the activity starts with choosing from four shapes, something that seems completely random, and then ties into their own individual values and how those can then in turn become class values. It also incorporates having students walk around the room and have actual guided discussions with each other.
Learning Stations
Create stations with interactive activities to get students moving and understanding classroom expectations. This idea by Angelina Murphy has teachers create four stations that can be customizable to your class. Ideas for stations can include reviewing the syllabus or introductions using videos. If your school has an LMS, depending on your tools, you can turn this into an online discussion using the embedded video features.
If you’re still looking for ideas, you can check out this playlist with previously shared ideas on my YouTube channel.
Have a great year building a strong classroom community! Please share in the comments below if you tried any of these ideas and how it went.
Ms Priester EDU 