It's hard to believe I experienced my 35th First Day of School. This picture makes me laugh because I still carry my lunch box the same as I did when I started kindergarten! Our first day of the 2018-2019 school year, brought so much joy and happiness to my heart. Getting to know a new group of learners, as well as their families began at our Meet the Teacher night, the Wednesday before school started! I loved hearing how excited families are about being in our class this year. I truly believe it takes all of us working together to achieve growth and success!
We spent our first week building our classroom learning environment, where all learners can be successful! Throughout the week, the noise level increased, as did the smiles and laughter, which spoke volumes to my teacher heart. Our kids are feeling safe and will be more willing to embrace the struggle and learn the why behind our math.
This week's learning including creating our class treatment agreement, building a collaborative learning environment, embracing a growth mindset and diving into our digital resources! It was definitely a packed week of learning and excitement.
As part of our first week together, we spent time creating our class treatment agreement. It was eye opening and honestly, heart breaking to hear what some learners have experienced in their years of being at school. Above is a copy of the template each learner received, along with our steps to creating our class treatment agreements.
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| Adding his table groups ideas for how students should treat Ms. Pauley |
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| Sharing their ideas and summarizing their table groups treatment agreements |
Because our district is 1:1, and chromebook rollout occured during our first week together, I thought it would be fun to take our class treatment agreement digital! Using Mentimeter, I created polls for each of our guiding questions and guess what....The learners of room 103 loved it! As they each voted, or put money/points into each category they thought was important the screen changed. They loved watching the "real" time voting. Hearing, "Can we do this again?" once again reminded me of why they are "my kids" for the 2018-2019 school year!
Building a Collaborative Learning Environment
I strongly believe in the power of working together and building each other up! Our Huskies truly encouraged each other when it came to problem solving, as well as sharing during our warm-ups and class activities .
If you are wanting to build this type of learning environment, I'd strongly suggest implementing WODB warm ups...they are amazing! There are no wrong answers, since each learner gets to justify why they chose the answer. Learners were amazed by the different ideas and reasons to why their classmates chose various patterns.
Embracing a Growth Mindset
Here is a link to the activities we used: Week of Inspirational Math by Jo Boahler
I loved hearing our learners share their thinking and be accepting of others' different views on the same problems. It was eye opening from the teacher's perspective to see how learners' visualized various problems.
I can already tell, I have a group of innovative thinkers, who are going to thrive this year, as we embark on our journey together!
Diving into Our Digital Resources
This year we are implementing Illustrative Math. This is a huge learning curve for both our learners, as well as us teachers! I'm grateful to have such a wonderful department who collaborates and encourages each other as we begin this journey. Our sixth graders were the first group of learners to embark on their digital learning journey. We introduced them to Desmos and Geogebra, which they loved! As I explained during our class, we all learn differently and this year we're adding another tool to our tool belt. Because of the excitement and enthusiasm on Day 1, I can only think our learners will grow not only in their digital skills but also their problem solving skills. It's going to be an exciting year!
Along with learning came abit of fun as well...photo booth props make everything better :)
I'd say this was definitely one of the best first weeks of learning....Here's to a year of many learning opportunities and success for the learners of Room 103!
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