Once you have invited your students in with a huge smile, conducted introductions, discussed classroom expectations, took attendance, assigned lockers and seating, it is time to engage your students in the learning process right away. This is a great way to set the tone of your classroom from day one. Engaging your students in a controlled learning environment with fun involved is always a wonderful way to build a culture of learning from the start which will reduce the work needed for classroom management. This lesson is intended for the opening day, however may take two to three days to complete, depending on the time spent with the opening logistics of the day. Think of this as an example lesson that can be done during the first week or two weeks of school.
It will be helpful to watch my mathematical practice videos located in my MP folder before conducting this lesson. If you are unfamiliar with the mathematical practices a great link to use can be found here. This site was created by Michelle Flaming. She does a great job placing the practices in student friendly language, breaking down the student role and teacher role for each practice, and gives activity examples in which you may use to help engage students in each practice.
Create a resource to use for your direct instruction portion of the lesson. You may create a power point, a Smart Exchange Lesson, Guided note handout, or choose to verbally discuss each practice with your students. Depending upon your students and the level of engagement you would like to have will depend upon the resource you create. I left this open so that you may be as creative as you would like. I feel it is important for students to understand each practice and thus the language of the practices should be translated so that students are clear on how they will use each practice and when.
To reinforce what you taught during your direct instruction, take 10 minutes to play a Game that will get your students excited and pumped. This will also set the tone of the classroom, in which students will have an experience that will leave them wanting to come back with the expectation that they will learn with boundaries, expectations, and FUN!
The game I created is helpful in the sense that each question that is given to the students has an example of how they will be engaged in each practice. The game is high energy, loads of fun, and totally interactive. You may create your own game that is conducive to your classroom environment. This game lends itself to MP 1.
Student Activity: Let’s Create a Resource!
Throughout the course of the year I will refer to the Interactive Math Journals that students will use consistently. I always purchase the notebooks ahead of time so that students will have them on day 1 to get acclimated with the uses of the interactive notebook from the start. The notebooks are such an important tool for instruction, it is important that students are introduced to the notebooks as soon as possible. If you have a supply list out ahead of time, this would be a great addition to the list. I purchase the single subject notebooks from Walmart for $.17 apiece.
For my students, the first 8 pages (front and back) will be an explanation of each mathematical practice along with an illustration that illustrates an example of how they will be engaged in each practice. Once you have explained each mathematical practice, and played the game, instruct students to title their covers “MY INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOK” along with their name and class period in a black sharpie marker. The students will then title each page Mathematical Practice One, Mathematical Practice 2, and so on. For each practice the students will need to include an explanation for each in their own language of understanding and an illustration for each.
This may take more than one day to create, and this is okay. It is an important resource for the students to create on their own. This will deepen their understanding of each mathematical practice. You will be able to instruct your students to use their resource when they ask for your help or guidance. For students who are transitioning to the Common Core, this will be a great guide to build the new culture of learning. The student activity will lend itself to MP1, MP6, and possibly MP 3 depending on the conversations the students have with you and one another.
Have students reflect upon what they learned today. Instruct students to write a short summary over one of the mathematical practices, and how they feel that practice is embedded in their everyday lives. For day 2 of the introductory unit, open up with students sharing their summaries. This will be a great time to introduce the format of a typical day in the classroom. The bell ringer portion of the day is the first 10 - 15 minutes depending upon the learning target, and is ususally followed by a whole group instruction, student activity, closing, exit ticket, and homework instruction.