Since school has started, I have progressively gotten more scatter-brained and cannot wait until next week when the kids (hopefully) have all the routines down and we can get into the full swing of things! With that forewarning, this post will be a hodgepodge of some of my favorite back to school activities we do.
1. Million Words or Less
I can't claim credit for this one, but it's an idea I have stolen from my teammates and it has been one of the most amazing things to help me get to know students and their families. Basically, parents are to write a letter to me (in a million words or less) telling me all about their student. No other guidelines are given. These letters have made me both literally laugh out loud and cry, but it reminds me how much life has thrown at some of my kids (because they have already become "my kids" at this point) and gives me an insight into their personal lives/families. I always enjoy reading these letters and save them to reference throughout the year.
2. Observation skill practice
Beginning of the year science time is probably one of my favorite times of the year! Since I'm a science nerd, I get really excited about getting students excited about one of my passions! To practice observation skills, students work with partners to observe earthworms. First we discuss some safety (for the worms, not the students) and simply let students make observation in their science notebooks including a scientific illustration. In case you haven't done this before, if you shine a flashlight under the worm you can see all of it's organs. Kids LOVE this and think it's the coolest thing ever! After, we use several pages from the "Worms eat our Garbage" book (can be found at http://infohouse.p2ric.org/ref/44/43058.pdf) to discuss worm parts and we read the story about the "Worm that Came to Dinner". The next day, we do a round robin table sharing activity that leads to a perfect discussion on observation skills, making good observations, and observation vs. inference. Following this, we (the teachers) set up our crime scene for our science processes unit and pull observations vs. inferences again when we observe the crime scene. (Look next week for a post on the CSI unit, we start on Tuesday!)
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5th graders observing worms (TY Sarah for taking pics!) |
3. Book Blind Date
Basically what it sounds like: blind dates with books. Set out a bunch of books, give students 1-3 minutes with each book and rotate when the music plays. Students keep a list of books they are interested in reading in their reader's notebook. This is great when discussing good fit books for daily 3 and gives them some ideas for next reads. I plan to do this several times thought the year and have students select the books to use.
4. Small Group Rules/Challenges
In science practically everything we do is in a small group, so we spend some time teaching expectations at the beginning of the year. Each expectation has an action that goes with it. After we initially introduce the expectations, students participate in this team challenge that I saw somewhere online years ago. Each group has a rubber band with a string attached to it for each student. They must work together to build a pyramid from the stack of cups. This leads to great discussions on participation and collaboration because it's nearly impossible to build without every person doing their part and working together.
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Small Group Challenge |
5. Instant Fun
Piggybacking off the small group theme, I also love the "instant fun" activities that basically just cause chaos in the room, but the kids have a great time laughing together (which does wonders for class building)! It's a simple following directions list of things like everyone in 5th grade shout King Kong, anyone wearing red squawk like a chicken, anyone who has argued with a sibling bang your desk and say I deny it, if you ate breakfast hop around the table 3 times, etc. It's hilarious, takes 5 minutes, and the kids love it!
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Instant Fun: If you've ridden a bike, pretend to around the table 5 times |
6. Writer's Workshop read alouds and quickwrites
If you don't do writer's workshop, you should. Our district has a wonderful coach, Kathy Brooker (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kathy-brooker/75/b00/a12), that helped us get going and I can't believe I didn't teach writing this way before! During the beginning of year, we work on setting up our notebooks and getting lots of ideas for writing. For each idea activity, we have a picture book to read and discuss because, yes, 5th graders still love hearing stories (as do people of all ages). We also build in our routines and other mini lessons (such as spelling strategies, different types of writing, where writers get ideas, skipping lines, etc). This one deserves a post on its own, but it is one of mine and my students favorite parts of the beginning of the year.
We are implementing Leader in Me this year as well and I can tell that will become one of my favorite parts of back to school. What about you? What are your favorite back to school ideas?!? I'm excited for a great year!