The First Hour

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. ..................................... Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I believe all teachers have a similar before school process.  We are excited by the idea of our new students and anxious to meet them.  We clean and ready our rooms.  We spend hours sitting in meetings learning the newest teaching methodologies to use and the new administrative duties required for the year.  We feel ready!  We head home feeling exhausted, yet excited for the first day of school.  As we tuck in our own children and climb into bed, the reality hits.... "What will I teach those kids tomorrow?" 

I know I'm not alone in feeling that I prepare and prepare and somehow the most important aspect of the first day of school gets pushed aside.  Not this year thanks to Chris Biffle and WBT.  I just watched my first webinar with Chris and loved the topic of the first hour. It is where we set the stage for the entire school year and I've never felt that I did that first hour justice.

I always want student's first impression of me and my classroom to be positive and safe.  I have done the bioglyphs, getting to know you games, building classroom projects and any other number of first day activities.  I've never started teaching in the first hour until now.

Coach Biffle suggests starting outside of your classroom to greet students and introduce yourself.  Make sure you let kids know you are happy they are there and more importantly how happy you are to be there too.  Nobody wants the teacher who is not excited about the first day of school.

Seat kids quickly.  They do not need to be in their permanent locations.  Begin right away with, "class-yes." Practice the most basic of WBT strategies with different voices and rythyms.  Make this a fun and yet powerful experience for you and the class.  Within minutes, you have their attention and they are waiting for you to show them the road that you will travel together.

Introduce rule one, follow directions quickly, to the class.  Practice saying, "rule one," while students respond, "follow directions quickly."  Show the hand movements which are  both hands in the air moving back and forth.  Have students repeat this in a variety of ways.  Practice them following directions quickly.

Next, introduce the scoreboard.  Teach students the mighty groan and the mighty oh yea.  I'm so excited to teach students how to groan.  They want to do it and now I will be giving them the opportunity to, but within my boundaries.  Practice the class-yes response, and rule one, using the scoreboard. 

I will have to go through this process three times.  I will have a second math class and then a separate science class with different students, as we are departmentalizing this year.  I will also need to integrate the discussion of our pbs behavior matrix and how students are expected to act in all areas of the school. It seems tedious and boring for students but it is required.  I will try to have that discussion using the wbt three step lesson delivery model to make the process relevant.

It feels fabulous to know I have the first day planned before the meetings, before the room is set up and before I have set foot in the building.  It may really be a whole new kind of year.

22 days to FDS (first day of school),

Bells