First Day of School

So this year, I tried something different on the first day. I had my students come in and sit down in their assigned seats (some of which changed, as the roster has already changed several times!). I had them fill out an information sheet, where I asked them for preferred names, technology access at home, plans for the future, favorite memory from last year, and any students who they couldn't work with or any that they worked well with. In addition, I gave them a section to let me know of anything else they wanted to tell me about: themselves, life, math, questions about me, etc. I had a couple students tell me important things that were going on in their lives outside of school, while others shared details about their passions.

Once we finished the info sheet, I told the students since this was math class, we were going to discuss some important numbers - numbers I found important, anyway! I then announced the first slide:
"Is the number 2 important because it is
a. the number of children Mr. G has.
b. the number of dogs Mr. G has.
c. the number of times Mr. G ate Chinese food last week."

The kids were instructed to circle the answer they thought was true on the handout in front of them (as they followed along on the slides). I then revealed the slide with the answer and two or three photos illustrating it. For example, on the answer to the above, it said, "Mr. G has 2 dogs: Margartia, who is a 14 year old Chihuahua and Stormy (short for Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All) who is a 4 month old Pembroke Welsh Corgi.

I had about 8 or 9 of these multiple choice questions, including facts like 5 summers spent at space camp as a camper, 3 nieces and nephews, 1 is my Softball Jersey number, 83 board games that I own, 42 episodes of Warehouse 13 that I watched this summer, and 118 hours of video games were played this summer by me (roughly).

I then gave them the chance to choose 3 numbers that were important to them and had them write about it. For homework, they chose one of those three numbers to create a poster, collage or diagram about. I learned about the number of siblings many of them had, how old they were when their grandma died, and/or how many countries they have visited.

I saved the rules and syllabus details for the second day, and let the students learn a bit more about ME on day 1. So far, it seems to have been a good idea, and I think I will use it again next year!