Reflection After the FIRST Week of School

Hello and Happy Sunday!  I must begin with a comment about this crazy weather we have been having lately!  Gosh, what season is it?  I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Summer but the past week has felt like Fall.  On the other hand, I do admit though that the cool weather last week was nice for the first week of school!  I enjoyed the cool breeze in the morning, wasn't hot running around school during the day, and the students were comfortable.

This year I am teaching 8th grade math!  I am super excited and have already had a great first week.  The students seem very sweet and hard working.  I have had some confusion with names though.  It is crazy how many kids have the same name in this specific class.  Too many Anthonys and Marcos.  I feel horrible that I have asked some of the same kids every day, "I'm sorry, what's your name again?"

So, other then weather and the student's attitudes, the week went very well.  Meg is my co-teacher and one of my good friends, so we are working perfect together!  We have already given a pre-assessment on distance-time graphs.  We already had stations in one of our block periods and the kids worked very well together.  There was great communication between the students while figuring out a sort that they did.  They had to match 10 distance-time graph with a scenario and then explained their reasoning to one of us when they were through.  I love to see and hear when students are working together.  They use words that we use previously in the lesson (which makes me super happy) or they are trying to explain to their partner their reasoning for one of their answers.  Collaboration is so important within the classroom.  Kids are explaining their thinking, taking ownership of their learning, and having fun too.

 


My school just switched to block scheduling, so the students have 88 minutes in their classes and 3 core classes a day.  They have ELA and Math every day and then Science and Social Studies every other day.  Their special/exploratory class switches every other day as well.  So the students were taught this week what it looks likes and feels like to be in block classes.  Meg and I taught what stations look like, sound like, expectations of behavior, and expectations of some of the activities that will be used throughout the year.  I think it went awesome and it will be better over time because we can get more accomplished in one class and meet with all the kids you need to meet with one on one or in a small group.

We also encouraged our students positive behavior this week by being on time.  One of our new PBIS incentives are falcon dollars.  Students can earn them each week based on a specific theme (on time for class, prepared with materials).  Then they use their dollars at the school store for small prizes/rewards or they can save up for other bigger incentives like a school outing.  I love this and can't wait for them to take responsibility for their own dollars and "save" them and learn some lessons along the way!  I was really excited for those students who received their first few dollars this week for being on time.

I can't wait for another week and getting to know more about my students.  Happy back to school!  I wish happiness to you and your first week as well.  Anyone else want to share their first week back?