First Day of School

It's always tough figuring out what to do with those first three hours of school.  In my district it's only a half day.  Just enough time to begin building relationships, setting initial procedures, and maybe a thing or two more.

This year my district's focus is bullying--rather stopping and preventing bullying.  We had a really great presenter last week, Kevin Honeycutt, who talked a lot about cyber-bullying.  This is a new thing for us after all. I know I didn't grow up with all the pressures of online friendships.

Anyhow, Kevin has a really cute and highly effective story set to PowerPoint that targets bullying from the safety net of a cute dog named Starbuck.

This is something I'll show on the SmartBoard with the kids while pulling the sympathy/empathy out of our discussion.  We will brainstorm and list ways to prevent bullying from happening and from this, we will generate our classroom rules/guidelines.  I feel strongly that starting this way will get us off on the right foot.

When the kids first walk in there will be several things at their table but among all those supplies will be a baggy with a small ball inside.  Optional extra, have your parents come up to visit you for two dyas over Labor Day weekend and then stay extra long because your husband and dad decided to remodel the bathroom.  Then have your mom work classroom slave labor for you, including working on perfecting playdough. Thanks mom!

I came across this on one of the teacher blogs I read, Clutter-Free Classroom. I later Googled playdough recipes/back to school (or something like that) and came across A Teacher at Heart's blog. She blogged about and reviewed Teacher Tom's playdough recipe, which I agree, is awesome!

So here's my two cents on the subject.  First, I think this is a great way to help work out any nervous tension the students may have on the first day of school.  Secondly, who doesn't like to take a prize home with them?  All together a good idea (thanks ladies and gents!).

Following Teacher Tom's recipe, when all ingredients are mixed together-sans food coloring, it looks a bit like this.

You'll know it's done when they playdough starts to form a kind of skin on the outside.

Let your playdough set on wax paper for a couple of minutes.  Although, I really don't think you need to wait the five minutes it suggests. Once it's a temperature your hands can handle, form it into a small ball.  Then form a hole in the playdough ball big enough to house food coloring.

The hole may look something like this although I learned quickly to make the hole bigger, almost like hollowing out the middle.

Drop in around five or six drops of food coloring.  I used red to test but ended up using the neon colors for school.  Cover up the hole as carefully as you can so as to not disturb the food coloring.  Place each ball into a bag and seal.

For the first day of school I'll have the students work the playdough around in the bag for about a minute.  When the food coloring no longer appears liquidy, they may take it out of the bag and work it with their hands.

So, why a blog post about not bullying and playdough?  The Starbuck story line and the playdough work together like this--not judging a book by its cover--it's what's on the inside that counts.  You get the point.  I'm really hoping to drive this home in those first three hours and to keep it going strong all year long.

All you teacher readers out there, have a fantastic first day!