Preparing for the First Day

I am preparing my classroom for the first day of school.  This year I plan to use as many Whole Brain Teaching strategies as I can.  This summer I have watched many of Chris Biffle's webcasts to learn more about his strategies.

"The First Hour" is a webcast that teaches teachers how to begin the first day of school.  In this webcast I learned to have a PowerPix and Super Improvers wall, as well as a scoreboard on the white board and the five rules posted on the wall before class begins.  In addition the morning's lessons should be written on the board.  On the first day, begin with teaching "teach" "Ok".  After the students have learned this procedure the majority of the morning is used to learn rule 1, Follow Directions Quickly.  This rule is reviewed throughout the day while learning each lesson. 

One part of this video that I really liked were the scripts that help teachers to know exactly what to say. I think these scripts would be especially helpful for new teachers.  Chris Biffle also recommends beginning with all students lined up in the hallway.  This will probably not work in my school, because students and parents come to the classrooms early and do not stand outside the classrooms. He also suggests waiting to assign student's desks until later in the day.  The reason for this is that we don't know the students yet.  I usually have my students sit in ABC order on the first day to help me learn their names.  I have not yet decided if I will use Mr. Biffle's suggestion for this.

Other useful webcasts that I have watched are "Day One", "Red Green Marker", and "PowerPix".  Tonight I will be watching "Week 1 Goals."  You can view all of these videos an MUCH more at wholebrainteaching.com