Starting the Year Differently

Starting Year Four!

So, up to this point I’ve modeled my first week from the most excellent books by Wong and Wong.  Careful and detailed classes directing ‘how we do things in Mrs Bryson’s class.’  There have been name tents to help me to learn names, and a lot of me talking.  Plenty of me telling them how to do things and how to keep me happy.

This year, I’m trying a different route.

First big change is that we are no longer Mrs Bryson’s room.  Thanks to Joy Kirr and Shift This, those days are gone.  Now we are Room 1113 - and it’s no longer as easy as the teacher telling you what to do, now kids have a part and a say.

No name tents.  There was nothing wrong with names on desks.  In fact they really helped me!  It meant I could ‘sideways glance’ and appear to know a name while I was struggling to learn them (I’m terrible with names.  The struggle is real).  But my setting has upped its flexibility this year.  Name tents just aren’t practical on ottomans and cushions 😂😂

Then there are all those procedures and rules 🙄😳🙄. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s important that I have a plan for how things should run - after all, that’s how you keep things smooth and consistent - but do I really need to lecture the kids for 3-4 days about it?  Do they remember it anyway (6th graders.  Deer-in-the-headlight mode)?  And if I’m encouraging them to consider this as their learning space, is it right that I’m so overtly creating rules?  I think not.  So, a different strategy has been employed.   

How they learn the procedures:

First of all, I am being much more intentional about where things can be found and how they’re labeled.  Every drawer, container, pot, folder, is carefully labeled so that students can clearly see where everything is kept.  Any extra time has been given to an opportunity to take a sticky note and write a question about anything you see in the class - "Who is Dr. Who?"  "What's the Idea Board for?"  "Why do you have a mailbox?" are just a few of the many notes I have been grabbing and answering at a variety of moments.

Secondly, as we have started with actual activities and thoughtful discussions, when an authentic teaching moment for a procedure has arisen, we've stopped and discussed it.  First bathroom visit took care of that one, "Can I go to my locker for a pencil?" allowed me to show them the pencil pot and the free golf pencils....and so it continued.

Third, as we go into our first week of 'real' content next week, we will be introducing a 'Procedure of the Day', allowing me to hone in on whatever we need to intentionally teach.  Sixth graders can't be expected to remember a litany of policies, so much better to give one at a time and allow them to think about the WHY and how it affects them.

If they can see 'why' and know how it affects them....that's all that matters to our sixth graders!!

So, what did we do?

DAY 1 (Thursday):

I can't remember or find the original Tweet that put this idea on my plan, but I give much credit to this blog, discovered on Twitter, that gave me my direction:  Day 1 letter strategy . First I showed them this video:  https://youtu.be/XQkGeeD7V50 Fortunately only a couple of eagle-eyed students noticed the 'shit' that I missed when previewing. Oh dear! Still, the message was sent.

After watching the video, I asked the students to write a letter to me to describe themselves as individuals and learners. The catch? As per Ms. Penrod's blog, students had to write pretending they are one of their parents/guardians. I definitely found out who understood point of view! This was powerful on many levels - and even gave me a glimpse of their writing willingness and capability.

First evidence and writing to use while conferencing - DONE!

Then, to their horror (and vastly exaggerated for effect on my behalf), I announced HOMEWORK! "Wait, homework on the first day?!" Yes indeed.

They were tasked to come up with a choice of dragon that would become their class dragon. Drawing or picture, written or typed, a few sentences.

After all, Room 1113 is theirs. It is up to them to define their class!

DAY 2 (Friday):

Thank you to Joy Kirr, author of Shift This to give me this idea. Probably the most powerful early thinking activity I have enjoyed with sixth graders! She outlines it in chapter 2 and in her blog at

http://geniushour.blogspot.com/2015/07/communication.html The basic premise was as I read the book, the kids showed their compliance and learned behavior. Following the repetition, correctly guessing what the author was going to say was easy for our well-trained students. It was so much fun telling them that I wanted was their actual thoughts - what did he or she think? What was his or her opinion - and why? We talked about how they can disagree with me, as long as they support their ideas with evidence and reflection - oh, and that we are all respectful of course!

Then we discussed our reading challenge - a new venture for me and another blog-to-be, and got crazy with the class library! Books were checked out, the challenge begun.

But what about pre-tests and benchmarks?

Data. The got-to-have stuff.

I saved the benchmark and grammar pretest for the first full week. I know that data is key, but what a way to introduce them to our class! I hate having to 'play school' so early on. Especially when said tests are loaded with questions that tney are expected to struggle with. Ugh. I put it off as long as I could, but it's done and I have that data on hand.

Then we finished off our first full week with a specially created hyperdoc that took them all around our learning platform (itsLearning) and Google Classroom. The kids completed their first reflection, made comments on Google Classroom, sent me a message, and subscribed to our YouTube channel.

Between our parent survey, Letters to Mrs. B, their first reflections, and time well-spent, I am getting to know our team.

I'm still struggling with names though 😕