Friday! Friday! Friday! It’s the first Friday of my back to school season. =) Let me tell you, I’ve earned it this week. Today I thought I’d give you a little run down of my favorite activities this week.
We’ve been working hard to get to know each other and our room this week. This is one of my favorite simple activities from the week. I used Lita Lita’s school bus craftivity to make a cute hallway display. Each student wrote a short paragraph about themselves. I love that it looks like we’re all a team and going places together. It was hard to get a straight on picture in our narrow hallway, but you get the idea.
3. Communicating and Following Directions
One of our first science investigations is all about being a good team member. It’s important to build a solid foundation for group work early on. I need my students to share, take turns, listen to each other, and do their best when we’re in groups… especially when we’re working with science tools. I put my students into pairs and give each child an identical set of gram cubes. They each put up books or folders to hide their work space. The first partner builds a structure with his cubes and then gives oral directions to the second partner in an attempt to duplicate the structure. They take turns in both roles. I think this group was the best group I’ve ever had and many of them were able to successfully build the same structure!
Building upon our group work idea, check out this management strategy! It never seems to fail that I end up with one group that has way too many students in it because they switch to be with their friends instead of going where they are assigned. So… I bought a pack of neon plastic bracelets and a super cute monster pencil pouch. I counted out 4 bracelets of each color for 24 total bracelets. Students can reach into the bag to grab a random color, or I can pass them out. They must wear the bracelets during group work. This eliminates students switching groups on me when I’m mixing them up.
This was my last DIY project of the summer. I used glittery letters from Hobby Lobby and hot glued them onto a wooden strip. I painted the strip with metallic paint first to make it match. I love how it looks in front of my desk, but I forgot to take a picture so here it is in my office before I took it to school. Easy!
I can’t wait to see what everyone else is up to. Be sure to link up!
What a great idea for the monster bracelets! Love it! And Jumping Beans – how fun!!
Molly
Lucky to Be in First
I love the bracelet idea too!
Brooke
How fun! Where did you find the jumping beans? I'm loving the bracelet idea also!
Alison
Rockin' and Lovin' Learnin'
I love the bracelet idea. Keep those great ideas flowing.
Cute idea to use the bracelets for grouping students! I love how you say you can keep track of whose in which groups!
🙂 Tamra and Sarah
First Grade Buddies
Jumping beans???? How fun! I have never seen such a thing. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Catherine
The Brown-Bag Teacher
What!!! I've NEVER seen or heard about jumping beans before!! That was crazy – I felt like I was watching some CGI motion picture…
Weird!!! haha
Erin
The E-Z Class Follow on Bloglovin
The bus activity is very cute! Thanks for sharing! I also love your management idea with the coloured bracelets – Sometimes I feel a little lost in those first few weeks so need something like this!
Alison
Teaching Maths with Meaning
Thanks so much for posting about the bus craftivity! Love the jumping beans too 🙂
Love the monster bracelets! I'm sure your kids love that! I'm sharing your great idea at my FB page. Thanks for sharing!
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