Back to School Bash: Week 3

Hey friends!! I'm back again for week 3 of the Back to School Bash linky party! This week we are talking about the first week of school! Being that my first day was last week, I'm SO excited to share with you some new activities that I tried this year that were a HUGE hit! 

As I reflected on last year's beginning of the year activities, I decided that this year, I really wanted to focus on teamwork and working together. On the first day, I gave my students a puzzle. There were four different puzzles and four different groups. They had to work together to complete as much of the puzzle as they could. They had to discuss a strategy as to how they wanted to work on the puzzle and they had to agree on it. 

 I was incredibly happy to hear such wonderful strategies being discussed at each group. I could hear some groups strategizing to pick out certain color pieces and then designating their team members to work on that color, other groups decided to separate the border pieces from the inside pieces, a different group designated one person to put together the bigger pieces that they put together and try to connect them. I was so excited to hear such wonderful teamwork from my new group of kiddos. We were definitely on the right path. After the puzzles were finished, I had each group share what their strategy was. I plan on re-doing this activity but giving each group a different puzzle to see if they use the same strategy or a different strategy. 

Another first week activity that I did that also worked on teamwork was an idea that I found from Tammy over at Housing in a Forest. I gave each of my groups aluminum foil, pipe cleaners and yarn. The only directions I gave them was that they were to work together in a group to come up with something creative. Once again, I was blown away at some of the projects that my students made. I absolutely LOVED hearing their conversation and how well they were working together. 

Here are some pictures of the fun we had! 

Here are some of the completed projects:

This group made a robot. 

This group made a flower garden. Inside the foil, they put green colored pipe cleaners to represent the grass. While they were presenting, they "watered" the garden with blue cut up pipe cleaners. It was super creative!  

This group made a rocket with a little alien on top! I thought this was so COOL! 

This group made a volcano!

Well, there you have it! As you can see, my first week was all about teamwork and building a classroom community. I'm so glad to have done those activities! Our classroom is already starting to feel like a family! 

I'd love to hear about some of your first week activities! Be sure to join us and link up and enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win a $50.00 TpT Gift Certificate!!!

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