This was so much fun! With new GATE teachers in mind, I asked colleagues to share some of their favorite first-day activities. Here are just a few ideas shared!
First-Day Letter – Steph loves to incorporate letter writing in the first week. She often begins by reading the book A Letter from Your Teacher on the First Day of School. “I then have students write a letter back to me with their goals, hopes, and things I should know about them.” Steph has also done a S.C.A.M.P.E.R. on this activity! “One year, I had them write a letter to their pencil case on the first day of school. Basically, I was just asking them to predict the things their pencil case would endure during the upcoming year. I gained insight into some of their anxieties.“
Domino Chain Reactions – Here’s a unique way to build community and have kids help set the class norms! From Maria: “First, I break kids up into random groups, and then I casually place dominoes and the challenges (found here) on the tables. I tell the kids to get started, with no other directions. Chaos ensues for about 5-10 minutes, and then we sit down and talk through what happened. I ask, ‘What did you need to be successful? What did you need from me to be successful?’ We then take that conversation and make a list of our class expectations. The kids come up with statements such as ‘Mrs. G. will give us directions about the activity,’ ‘We will listen carefully and ask for help if we don’t understand,’ and so on. Then we try again, using our expectations to set up the activity. You can find the domino activity here, but any activity you have would do.“
Let’s Make Squares – We all LOVE Sarah Carter’s amazing math resources! G/T teacher Sarah P. says, “I’ve done the Let’s Make Squares challenge with my 3-6th students on the first day of school, and they have loved it! So many of these activities are awesome to use and are part of the regular extensions in my gifted room.” Definitely check out Sarah Carter’s website, Math Equals Love, and see how I extended her Happy Numbers resource with this lesson. Marissa says she incorporates many of these first-week math puzzles at the beginning of school. “These puzzles are a HUGE hit in my classroom. I use them to highlight how students’ gifts and talents are unique, evident in the type of reasoning they use. They are always begging for more, so I now use them as warm-ups when teaching logic or visual-spatial lessons.”
Can You Save Fred? – I love the idea of using this on the first day as an icebreaker. Chelsea uses this activity across many grade levels. Students work in pairs to save a hapless gummy worm named Fred who has capsized his boat and lost his life preserver. The mission is to rescue Fred without hurting him or dropping him into the “lake.” “All grade levels love it, and it really opens up conversation, provides challenge, and reinforces teamwork!” – Chelsea
Impossible Challenges – On the first day of G/T class, Buffy presented the challenges shared here in a unique way. She set them up as stations. She explains, “I had my students for three hours, so stations worked very well. At each station, I had written instructions and supplies. The station numbers were on the whiteboard, and those who were successful at a challenge got to write their names on the board under the station number. I made sure to leave a good 30 minutes at the end of the class for debriefing. We talked about each station and the feeling they had as they tried each challenge. We discussed that GT kids often experience failure and that learning to deal with failure is a valuable tool. We also talked about strategies to use when you can’t quickly and easily solve a problem or task. I wrote those down and made posters to display around d the room for referral all year. Of course, they always want to know the tricks to solving them, but I don’t tell them. The next week, we do the statio stations again using the strategies we brainstormed before (with only a short time at each station). Then we talk through the solutions and how often there is more than one way to arrive at a solution. I follow this lesson with the Lego duck activity (see below)!“
Build a Duck Lego Challenge– Veteran G/T teacher Buffy also shared this one, and I love how she extends this activity! Students are given 6 Lego pieces and simply told, “Build a duck!” Buffy prepares by putting the 6 Lego bricks into separate baggies, one for each student. Here’s how Buffy changes it up: “I give students a time limit of 2 to 3 minutes. When time is called, students push their ducks to the center of the table and discuss the diversity of designs! Students then take a duck from the center that is not their own. I tell them to take that duck apart and use the pieces to build another duck, different from their first design. This time, they have 1 minute or so.“ Once students have completed their second designs, Buffy gives them two minutes to talk about the designs and how it felt to have someone take apart their original creation and redo it! “GT kids have distinct ideas in mind and have such ownership of their learning. They believe their original ideas are always the best and have a hard time dealing with people changing or improving on their creations.” This activity gives students a chance to discuss the appreciation of a diversity of ideas and being open to many perspectives!
Beautiful Oops! – (Previously shared here) On the first day of GT, Stefanie found a way to extend one of those impossible challenges above. She has her students do the“Walk Through a Postcard” impossible challenge, and then use their cut-up postcards, the ones that didn’t work, to create any kind of art of their choosing. One year, she had them all create a self-portrait. “We studied portraiture over time, focusing on the really unique ways people are creating them today. Then they created their own! It was my absolute favorite way to do the lesson,” Stefanie told me. Even the bulletin board title was created using cut-up cards (see a picture here). What a great visual reminder all year of the message in the book Beautiful Oops!
Paper Pie Art Cards – This is another unique icebreaker shared by Shelly. Paper Pie art card sets are designed to get kids creating! The cards in each deck provide prompts that, when combined, form imaginative drawings. The decks include Draw Cartoon Monsters and Draw Famous Paintings. The sets can be combined, too, and used in creative ways. The possibilities are endless! Shelly says that she does this with all grade levels and that “the kids love the drawing prompts and what they make. It gets them looking at spatial awareness without realizing it, and discussing each other’s and their own creations. I’ve also extended this by having students create/build our drawing with clay or recycled materials.“ There are also other drawing card sets that would work for this!
Jigsaw Puzzle Challenge– this is mine (from Donna), and if you haven’t read this post, about Thinking Outside the Box, you may have never seen it. It’s a favorite of mine for the first day, especially with upper elementary. “This activity reinforces teamwork, and it’s a fun AHA moment when students realize they must ‘think beyond the desk.'”- Donna. Oh, and I’ve updated the link to a puzzle set that will work for this. The one I used is currently unavailable on Amazon!
MORE FAVORITES SHARED PREVIOUSLY ON THE WEBSITE
Icebreakers and Jitter Shakers – First-Day Activities to Create Community
“Off-the-Wall” One-Minute Mysteries – set up stations to get kids moving
Hit the Ground Learning – use as stations or use just one activity
Beginning-of-the-Year “Who Am I?” Projects – shared by Jackie (thank you!)
Six Blind Men and an Elephant ~ A Lesson in Multiple Perspectives
Mathemagic and Arithmetricks – great for the first day of class