The First Week

So today marks the end of the first week of my sixth year of teaching.  I cannot believe that this is the sixth group of kids I have been blessed to get to know and build relationships with.  We did a lot of getting to know you activities this week and will really begin to get into our curriculum next week.  There are a couple of activities that we did that I wanted to share with those of you who have not started school and might be able to use them when you begin school next week.  You could also use these even if you have begun school to help students get to know each other better OR to get kids to see that they are mathematicians and see what they are capable of.

Activity One--Lion Glyph

Our mascot is the lion, so when one of my colleagues found the lion glyph we decided to use it and we are going to have it displayed for open house next week.  I love how they turned out and the kids really enjoyed making them.  I had them write a sentence on the back about the first week of school.

You can get the templates here for FREE (this is NOT my TPT store--I just really liked this activity):
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lion-Glyph-Craftivity-ZooSafari-693244

 

The second activity we did was a mathematicians activity.  The students brainstormed ideas of what a mathematician did, used, or were.  Our students sometimes get so nervous when it comes to math we want them to believe that they ARE mathematicians and that they CAN do math--they just may have to work hard at it.  We made the anchor chart and then they each made their own mathematicians.  The first picture is a picture of our anchor chart and the second picture is a picture of the chart with my student's mathematicians around it. 

You can get your own copy here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lets-Get-Started-Beginning-of-the-Year-Math-Activities-297895

 

 

 

Here are my student's mathematicians where they also copied some of the ideas about mathematicians.

 

 

This is what my the outside of my classroom looks like now :)

 

 So this is just a glimpse into my first week.  I love my students and it is always good to see former students around the building and see what they are doing a year, two, or three years after they were in my class.  I am so blessed to have been called into this profession and I am so thankful that I get to influence students' lives in a positive way!]

 

 

~Kristy