Legos For the First Day of School

Jarrett, Kevin. “LEGOs Donated to My Classroom.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 30 

Aug. 2015, www.flickr.com/photos/kjarrett/20387355543/in/photostream/.

Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)  

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Several goals come to mind for the first day of school:

• I want students to feel at ease.
• I want many opportunities to interact with each student.'
• I want students to enjoy themselves.

So, this year, students will manipulate Legos.  I have used them in the past as a way students can show understanding, so, if past experience proves, true, they will enjoy themselves and be at ease. Playing can easily allow students to feel relaxed and help wash some anxiety away. This type of activity has shown that it is accessible even to those students who don't enjoy Legos or who doubt their creative abilities.

With six large bins of Legos waiting for the students, I will have them create objects or scenes that show the following:'

1. something about themselves as a learner (strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes)
2. something about themselves as a person (personality, passions, values)
3. something they are looking forward to in 7th grade.

As they create, I will engage in conversation with the students. I'll speak with them about what they are constructing and extend the conversations as well.  The activity will provide me the opportunity to make a personal connection with each student.

Once done with their sculptures, students will use Chromebooks to take pictures and write what each shows. They will eventually share those with me, so I can refer back to them.

I'm looking forward to meeting the students and am optimistic this activity will help us all get on to the right feet the kick off the school year.

____________________________________
If you have engaging activities for the first days of school or, if this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing from you.