The First Week Of School

The first week of school can be a real challenge, trying to teach classroom procedures, establish behavior expectations, get to know students, and begin to build a positive, safe classroom culture. With all of that in mind, I decided to go full force into the “Non-Curricular Tasks” for the first six days of school. Each day my goal was to cover four things during the 51-minute period:

I wanted students to know that when they came into the classroom, they needed to be ready to think, talk, and persevere for 51 minutes without a break. Everyone would be expected to contribute, and sharing ideas (both ones that worked and ones that didn’t) was a treasured practice in the room. I wanted to emphasize thinking, and limit studenting and mimicking as much as possible.

Here’s a basic rundown of what I did in each of the first six days of school.

First Day of School (Friday):

  • Attendance
  • Review the Bathroom Pass procedures and where students keep their backpacks.
  • Which One Doesn’t Belong: 
  • Four Fours Thinking Task: This task was done in random groups of three students at the standing whiteboards.

Second Day of School (Monday):

  • Attendance
  • Fill out student planner and enroll students into DeltaMath.
  • Which One Doesn’t Belong: 
  • The Tax Collector Thinking Task. This task was done in random groups of three students at the standing whiteboards.

Third Day of School (Tuesday):

  • Attendance
  • Introduce procedures for borrowing supplies and expectations for how class supplies are treated.
  • Visual Pattern: 
  • Number Palindromes Activity. Since this requires paper and different colored markers, I had students work at the whiteboard tables in pairs. I could not figure out an efficient way to do this lesson on the VNPS.

Fourth Day of School (Wednesday):

  • Attendance
  • Establish Norms for class discussion and sharing ideas
  • Number Talk: 48 + 63
  • The Farmer’s Dilemma Thinking Task: This task was done in random groups of three students at the standing whiteboards.

Fifth Day of School (Thursday):

  • Attendance
  • Review the Classroom Success Plan
  • My Favorite No: Solve the equation 8 – 3x = -1
  • Guess My Rule game: Present students with a T-Chart that has two (x, y) pairs filled out. Students must use mental math only to figure out the rule being used. When a student thinks they know the rule, give them a random x-value and have them predict the corresponding y-value. After 5-6 pairs have been revealed, have a student explain the rule in detail. 

Sixth Day of School (Friday):

  • Attendance
  • Get assigned textbooks from the media center
  • How Many 7’s Thinking Task: If you write out the numbers from 1 to 1000, how many times will you write the number 7?

Without a doubt, this was the best first week of school I have ever experienced. By day four the students were excited to get working at the whiteboards and I saw almost 100% engagement from the students during the thinking tasks. I heard many comments from students at the end of class that their “brain hurt, but in a good way”. A good thinking task has a low floor, but can also offer challenging extensions for teams that want it. Even the most fragile middle school math student can add four fours to make the number 16, giving them a solid start on a task that can get quite complex.

For more on how I use Building Thinking Classrooms in my own class, go here!

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