First day of school activities?

Question

I teach 8th grade math. Every year on the first day I do the usual introduction of the teacher, students introduce themselves, they fill out a student questionnaire, go over rules and forms, etc. Does anyone have any fun activities I could do for middle school students?

Answer 1

I create a gird with like 20 boxes. On the top of the paper it says..."Find some who..." Then in each box there is a topic. For example..  1. speaks a different language  2. Went out of the state for the summer  3.  Plays the Piano   4.  Loves Broccoli   5.  Born in June etc.  Then have students go around and try to get at least 3 names in the box. I think it's good to get the kids mixed up and talking to each other. Middle schoolers are typically insecure and need to be forced to talk to others outside their social circle. Tell them they have to go up to mostly people they dont' know very well. If they finish the paper then they get a treat - Incentives like gum or candy always seem to work well. The activity is a great way to get to know each other and build a classroom community.

Answer 2

this one is great. It covers math and art.

Tell the students about everyone being unique. Teach them about the 8 intelligences. Check a website, it's too lenghthy for me to explain here.

Anyway, once you explain to them, they are tested to find out which "intelligence" describes them the most. (tests are also online)

At the end, you do the corrections with them. Obviously there are no right or wrong answers, but the students discover which intelligence is the most developped in them.

From those answers they are asked to do a bar graph.

Then they will do a poster with bristol board. They will divide the bristol board in 8 sections. In each section they will write one intelligence. Based on their results, they have to "draw" something/s in each compartment.

This project will last about a week. Then, at the end of the week, they do a presentation in front of the class. Grade 8's love to be the center of attention, so will enjoy listening to and giving out their oral presentation.

Enjoy!

:)

Answer 3

Good question and answers. I am a new teacher and for the first time I am going to have my own class on Wednesday. 7th and 8th grade science. I was looking for same kind of activities. But aren'tt these kind of too childish activities for 8th graders? If you say they are good, I'll try them. I especially liked the 20 question activity.  

Answer 4

I like to start with card games like multiplication facts war.  Even grade 8's can speed up on this.  We use decks of cards, take out the facecards.  Play war in groups of 2.  If you have an odd number, but one group of three with the best students in it.  Each turn over a card.  First one to say the answer gets the cards.  eg they turn over a 4 and a 8, first to say 32 gets the cards.  One with the most cards wins.  Winners play winners.  Losers play losers (maybe not a good time to call them losers -- call them the other partner!!!).  This matches people of equal skill, and at grade 8, we are going for speed on recall of math facts.  This should be easy for them, and is fun , and is a simple review.  If this is too easy, put them in groups of 3, and everyone has to multipy the 3 cards in their head (4 x 8 x 2-= 64 -- not as easy, but excellent practice).  

There are many good books.  One I had was called "Boxcars and One -eyed Jacks"  (I think!!!  I can't find the book -- boxcars and something!!!)  

Answer 5

Well, one of my teachers tried this last year. She asked everyone to write down 10 random questions; not the regular, what's your favorite colour questions-- more like what would you do if you won the lottery type of questions. Then she paired two random students in front of the class and they asked each other their questions. It was a good way to learn random things about everybody. Also, we had this thing called community circle where we'd all sit in a circle and someone would ask a question and then everyone would have to answer it. It was a lot of fun, and it ws really interesting. You can ask a lot of things; from favorite vacation, to an opinion on a current event. I hope this gives you some type of idea! Good luck! =)