Then there's always the question of what to do on that first day. At the secondary level many teachers feel obligated somehow to spend the class period reading every word in their disclosure, reading all the classroom rules, basically...making the students' first exposure to their class one of the most boring days they'll have all year in that class.
A lot of teachers have students write or present something about "What I did this summer"...which is better, but can also take up a lot of time. If I have 25 students, hearing or reading about all that they did
I prefer to get a little bit of fun in the mix, while still serving the needs that we have as teachers. Truthfully, I do want my students to get some of my disclosure statement (and depending on your admin, you may be required to read every word of that document in that first week of school at some point), I want them to know my personal classroom rules...but I also want to start establishing classroom climate, and I want to start them on my content. My content is important, I love it, I want them to love it.
One of the ways I engage students on the first day of school is with Play-Doh. I know a lot of teachers (even secondary teachers) use Play-Doh already, including Teach Like a PIRATE Captain Dave Burgess. A chapter in my own book Play Like a PIRATE: Engage Students with Toys, Games, and Comics is about Play-Doh. And you should buy it and read it. Buy ten copies even. One hundred. I won't even be mad.Specifically for the first day of school, this is what I'd do with Play-Doh:
Have students seated in groups of four, and each with a chunk of Play-Doh. They don't need a full-sized can, just enough to work with. Seated in groups, they'll be watching what the other kids at their table are making, asking questions about it, being interested in their creations, much more than if you were having them all take turns reading their statements about what they did over the summer. It will be an ice-breaker for them, which you want as much as an ice-breaker for you.
The beauty of Play-Doh, besides the smell, texture,
- What were you doing one week ago today?
- If you could have any animal as a pet, what would it be?
- What was the best day of your summer?
- What's one rule every student should follow?
- What does leadership look like?
- What's the most important invention of the last one hundred years?
- If you were going to eat one food for every meal for a month, what would it be?
- If you could have one super power, what would it be?
- What's a right you have as an American?
- What's one thing you would change about the United States?
That's it. Two or three minutes per question, they share at their tables, you have a few kids share their answers out to the whole class. I'm a history teacher, so a few of the questions start them thinking about rights, leadership, the current state of things in the United States. If I taught language arts, music, science, psychology, I'd put different prompts in there. It gives kids a chance to express themselves, it lets them get to know each other, and it helps ease the transition from their running a marathon Netflix summer to the classroom.
If you're looking for more ideas about using Play-Doh, LEGO, Action Figures, Superheroes...a lot of other stuff in the classroom, check out Play Like a Pirate: Engage Students with Toys, Games, and Comics. It's at Barnes and Noble, it's at Amazon, it's Everywhere Fine Books Are Sold. But mostly Barnes and Noble and Amazon.
