First Days of School Lessons
New Teacher Orientation: The First Day of School Lesson Plans
New teacher orientation involves first day of school lesson plans. Catch up on a few ideas for teacher support.
A major part of teacher orientation is getting to know the students you will be teaching for the entire school year. Your first day of school lesson plan is your way to leave a serious impression on your students.Check out some of the lesson plans with a few emergency kits.
The first day of school is the day when you will be invariably doing a lot of talking. Start with:
- introducing yourself briefly
- you can either continue with an ice breaker activity or distribute a page on your rules and procedures. (Students can copy from the board but this is time consuming) This is entirely your call. Use your intuition. By the end of the day however, students should know your expectations.
- You may want to have a busy page about their expectations and what they want to learn. Check out this page for variety of ideas.
The first day of school is invariably the day when students will also be doing a bit of writing. Without too much xeroxing, they can:
- write to you a letter of what they expect to learn and what areas they wish to improve.
- Fill out a student questionnaire and make a venn diagram of their similarities and differences.Then they can share in pairs and report back to the class.
- If you feel comfortable enough, you can share an anecdotal experience connected with your own school experience. Try bringing a symbolic or significant item.
The days that follow are just as important as the first day of school. During these days you will:
- be reminding the students constantly of the rules and procedures. (and all throughout the year)
- be acquainting the students of their new textbooks. You can use a treasure book hunt which is a page of questions. Students must flip through the pages of their textbooks (including those of the table of contents) and find answers to relevant questions. The purpose fo this activity is to introduce the type of textbook. Help them develop self-independence skills by distributing a page of answers, which you have xeroxed and they can share in pairs or in small groups of three.
Here are a few new teacher support tips for making the most from your first day of school lessons.
- When discussing your rules and procedures always illustrate two things: an example of the rule and an example of your consequence. Make sure you know where your school policy stands with regard to implementing consequences.
- Keep activities short and brief. Remember your job is to plan wisely for a full lesson plan.
- Use get-to-know you activities with discretion. If students are becoming too rowdy, remind them of the rules and procedures.
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