The first week of school is a great way to establish what your classroom will be for the rest of the year. Therefore it felt important to provide these components into the room.
Makerspace Morning
To teach the importance of taking care of the materials in the room, work collaboratively and commit to an assignment and see it through to the end, I had the students complete a jigsaw puzzle.
Musical Kinesthetic Learning
Not only does this song from Lodge McCmmon teach the properties of matter, this Discovery Education SOS strategy teaches students movement and music are components to a well rounded learning experience. Plus, it builds relationships with the students and creates a sense of accomplishment seeing themselves practice and perform in such a short amount of time.
Discovery Education SOS Strategy - Paper Slide Videos
One of the many great educational resources DE has to offer are their Spotlight on Strategies (SOS) lessons to teach any content. Paper Slides is a quick and innovative way for students and teachers to show what they know with just paper and a recording device. In this activity, students had to select five attributes from a list to describe themselves.
I have created several escape rooms/breakout games based on content yet this is the first time I used one of their created games. "Oh The Places You Will Go" Dr. Seuss theme, designed by Patti Harju. A breakout game specifically designed for the first week of elementary school.
I made some small changes. Instead of hanging items to easily view, everything each team needed was locked inside its individual box. Therefore they would first focus on one of the locked boxes by deciphering the first clue. I also added a 5th puzzle to have five teams of students. As with all my escape games, the focus is for all the teams to unlock their final lock along with everyone else's so it is a collaborative whole group accomplishment.
It was a great week thanks to the DEN, and Cooper.
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