First Day of School Questions

I loop with most of my students from 4th grade to 5th grade. We are in the 5th grade phase of the cycle, which is nice. There are only 3 or 4 students in each of my two classes who are new. It is so nice to know everyone's name and a lot about their interests, strengths, challenges, especially when doing the Monsters and Superheroes lesson. I'll write about that lesson a little later. 

After getting all their supplies, binders, tool pouches, and book boxes organized, we finally got to do a "lesson." I had arranged the room differently this year and there were things on the boards and in the room that were not there last year. We passed out paper and I asked the students to look around the room and notice anything different or interesting, then write down questions about what they noticed. 

I was doing this lesson when our new vice principal came in and sat down to do an informal observation. Wow! That never happens on the first day. He was there when I gave the assignment, as I went over putting their names and dates in the right corner of their papers, as I tried to encourage them to write, as they asked the questions, and as I answered them. 

The biggest change was that I had put the desks in groups of 4s. For the last couple of years, I had arranged the room in 2 sections - the front of the room and the back of the room. This was so that I could break the class into 2 groups; one would be doing the math lesson for the day and the other would be doing math work on the class laptops. We would rotate half way through the period. When I did science, I would still do mostly groups of 4, but they would fit into the existing arrangement. So, the question was: Why did you change the desks around? 

Now, remember - the vice principal is in the room. I told my students the answer, and I am posting the answer on this blog. There are a lot of witnesses. The answer: so that the room would be set up for science. Dun dun dun. Putting it out there helps me to be committed to be the teacher I want to be. I chose to be a math and science specialist years ago because I love inquiry science. And I love inquiry science because kids love inquiry science. But science is not a priority when math test scores are. Science gets minimized in a test-focused world. But this year I want to be the teacher I want to be. This year, I am committed to give science more attention. 

(I think I should apologize to the vice principal. I think he wanted to talk to the kids, but he didn't interrupt the lesson. Oops.) photo: last year's volcano eruption.