The first day of school is exciting for everyone! Parents are particularly excited to get their kids back in school, students are excited to see their friends, and teachers are anxious to meet their new students. Some things that are important to start a students year off on the right foot, is to make sure the activities during the first couple weeks of school are fun and attention grabbing. This will ensure that students come excited and choose to engage with your class. If you can get them off to a great start, they will be eager to learn which will be a huge benefit to both of you. Here are some fun and engaging activities for the new year in math class.
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Getting To Know You Games
Entering a new school year to a class filled with students who do not know each other, and do not know you, is always a little bit awkward at the beginning. It is always helpful to jump right into introductions. Students should get to know the teacher and get to know their classmates, because after all, they will be interacting, working, and learning with each other for the upcoming ten months. It is always important for students to know some facts about their teacher as well, fun things such as their favorite hobby, their family and pets will help the students to feel a bond with the teacher and feel a deeper personal connection. A great get to know you game that is incredibly simple yet effective is to have pre-written down questions on cards for students to ask to a group of classmates. Give them some time to be silly and giggle, they won’t forget it.
4th Grade Math Worksheets
After introductions, and once students are feeling more comfortable with each other, you can continue the game aspect but move into the math subject. Students can stay in their previous groups or mix it up and get into new groups to work on some 4th grade math worksheets together. These worksheets should definitely be simple and just review questions from the previous year to get students into the groove of thinking and solving math problems again. They might be a little rusty from summer, so it is important to let them focus on being able to work in a group and problem solving, more than the content of the math.
About Me Project
Fourth graders love to be creative and draw. To continue getting to know them, you can assign a project where students get to go into more detail about themselves. Let them draw a picture of themselves on the front, and on the back have them choose to answer from a few different prompts. Some questions could be: what was the most fun thing you did this summer? How many siblings do you have? What do you like to do for fun on the weekends? What is a hobby that you have worked hard at? This assignment will help you to be able to remember them more, get to know them more, but also to help students feel like they are included and cared about. If a student feels like they are valued and an important piece to the class, they will feel much more comfortable in class to participate, ask and answer questions, and to come to you if they ever need anything.
