It’s that time again; one of my favorite times of the year: back to school! I spent this past week in pre-planning with my colleagues getting ready for this new school year. I had also spent some time the previous week unpacking and setting up my new classroom. (Sixth grade teachers moved from the first to the third floor and eighth grade from the third to the first floor.)
I decided to take a lot inspiration from my time at Space Academy in Huntsville as I set up my classroom today. I have two classrooms – one is a regular classroom and one is a lab. The classroom is where we will start and end each day, so I called this the “Mission Status Briefing Room”. The lab, where we will be completing our labs and activities, is called “Mission Operations”. And the place where students turn in their work says “Submit Mission Reports”. I also plan to divide my classes into teams of four. They will work together for a quarter and learn to work together to solve problems. I will not set these groups up until the second or third week of school. I want to get know my students better and see how they work together before I place them in long term groups.
On Wednesday (August 3), we had our open house where our students come in to get their schedules, books, locker, and meet their teachers. It was a whirlwind two hours as I had a line at my door practically the entire time! But I met most of my new students and their parents, and I can tell this is going to be an amazing year.
I also helped out direct foot traffic during the seventh grade open house. It was so much fun seeing my students and their parents from last year. I also realized how many of my students’ parents I knew well because we had many interactions throughout the year. This was a great discovery because developing relationships with students and parents is definitely something I worked on last year. I think a lot of it comes down to the two receptions we had for students to show off their web portfolios to their parents. I plan to do even more of these this year – perhaps even once a month.
So, I am really excited for the opportunities to come this year! We get started tomorrow, and this year’s journey will begin.
