This year, I didn’t love my first day of school. I had a plan, it went fine. However, since I took a year off, all day I felt like I lost my mojo. There wasn’t any one thing that I could put my finger on either. I just felt like I was awkward all day.
I teach five classes. I have two one-level Algebra 1 classes, one on-level Geometry class, and two on-level Algebra 2 classes. The Algebra 2 classes were a little bit of a last minute surprise for me! My largest class has 16 and my smallest class has 6 (!).
I did almost the exact same first day with all three of my preps. First, I had students come in and find their seats from a seating chart that was taped to the whiteboard. Then, there were directions projected onto the board that instructed them to start working on the worksheet that was on their desks. I used my worksheet that has students use mathematical expressions to tell about themselves.
After a few minutes, I took roll. Then, I went through a very unimaginative powerpoint with a few things about myself and hitting the highlights of my syllabus. Then, I passed out textbooks. All of this was very boring.
After that, I has students color the Back to School Pennant from Scaffolded Math and Science. That was more fun than my boring powerpoint. It looks super cute in my room and helps hide my ugly paneling. Don't you just love it?
I wish I would have done something more interesting on the first day. I thought about using memes for the powerpoint and doing a short lesson on the golden ratio, but I was just too tired when it came down to it. Being a working mom is much harder and more tiring than it looks! I’ve been heading to bed at 8 every night when my son goes to bed!
So, with the first day over with, I will totally use the worksheet and the pennant again, but I need something more creative for the rest of the class period.
