From: Amy Burnett <amyjburnett@hotmail.com>
To: Teacher2Teacher Public Discussion
Date: 2002071717:03:41
Subject: What I plan to do on my very first teaching day

My first day of teaching this year will be my first ever in my own
classroom. I am in a small school and I don't know anybody or anything
about which kids need to be separated and which ones don't. I wanted
to involve math but I didn't want to start a lesson. The class is only
45 mins. and there isn't time for intros, book assignements and a
lesson. 

So how do I randomly assign seats while using math and keeping it fun?

This is what I came up with. I have 6 classes from 7th grade math to
Advanced Math (Pre-Calc/Trig). I have anywhere from 3 to 11 students
in a class. So I plan on numbering the seats (table sections) from
1-11. I took strips of construction paper in different colors for each
class and I wrote math problems on the back. They are rather simple,
and hints are given. The answers to these questions are equal to the
seat numbers. If there are 8 kids in the class, there are eight
problems and answers from 1-8 for that class. That way, I hold the
strips upside down and as the kids come in they draw one and they go
to the seat that matches their answer. I took the questions out of the
previous math class text so I know they had the material before. I
don't have the 6th grade text, and since the 7th graders would be new
to this wing of the school (it's a K-12 building) I gave them really
simple math questions or room orientation questions like how many
light fixtures are there and how many bulletins boards are there? 

I don't know how well this will work. I just hope it gathers attention
and makes it fun.

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