♪[theme music] Good morning. My line looks so perfect already.
Face forward for me, hands to your side. Face forward for me, hands
to your side, zero voice. Face forward for me, hands
to your side, zero voice. Thank you. Grab the line.
Awesome. Wow! Look at this. Hands to your side, facing forward.
Good morning Kiana, welcome. Alright my friends,
are we ready to go? Yes. Alright, we're going to walk to the
end of the ramp my friends. If you left your backpack on the side... So as opposed to getting started right
away with standards, establish the culture that's going to happen in your
classroom throughout the year. It allows students to feel comfortable and
also to get them to understand what you expect of them and then get to know how the
classroom works. [teacher greeting] Welcome. Look at that smile. At the beginning of the day I always stand
at the door and I greet students with either a high five, a fist bump, a handshake, or a
hug towards the end of the school year. I just like to set my day off
right with a positive tone. Who doesn't want to have a nice, smiling
face when they come in... for work basically. This is their-their job you can consider.
So when they come in, I like them to feel like I want them here, that I've been
waiting for them to get here. And I believe that when you start your day off like that,
you're setting them up for a positive day. Right now we're going to get your desk organized
first. Okay. So go ahead and take your binder off and you can put it down
next to your table, next to your seat. Just quickly on the floor is fine.
You can check it out as you do so. In your desk you are going to have two
sides. A right side and a left side. And one side is going to be for your soft
books. And the other side will be for your hard books. So, here's what I want you to do. I
want you to find your left hand. It's important to invest a lot of time in
your routines at the beginning of the year because that's when you have the most time to
establish them. So I start at the beginning and I spend a lot of time on my routines and
my expectations, doing things, doing things again, and even doing things again.
And as the time goes throughout the school year, I have to spend less and less time
and those things become second nature to the students. And you're going to put your My World
Social Studies book on the left hand side of your desk. And it
goes in this way. Not this way. So when I look in
your desk, I should see pages. Not spine. Okay? Go
ahead and do that now. So the procedure for their desk
organization is really simple. All their books that are paper back books I
like on one side of their desk and then their hard back books are on the other side
of the desk. That way when I ask students for a particular book, they can look in
their desk, they know what side it is on and they can get it easily. I want students
to be able to access what they need very quickly. Transitions are very important
and they can take a lot of time if they're not established at the beginning. So I
try to alleviate any hurdles from students that might cause my transitions to run long.
And not being able to find something or something not being in it's proper place is
something that makes a transition very difficult. Using the restroom
during your recess. Using the restroom
during your lunch... is you showing me and everyone else
around you that you are responsible. However, I do understand that things
happen. Right? Sometimes things happen. If you're in class and you
have to go, you have to go. And so when that happens,
you put one finger... just one... in the air and then you wait for a
non-verbal cue for me to tell you to go to the restroom. And it will usually look like this: You put
your finger up, I'll point at you, and then I'll point at the door and that
means that you can go. Okay. Now, show me the restroom sign. Thank you. Notice that there is no
"Miss Martin" with it. It's not, Mrs. Martin... That non-verbal signal is something that
I can do while I continue to teach. So if I see a pencil hanging in the air I
can just go like this and continue talking. The same with going to restroom or going
to water so it doesn't interrupt the flow of the lessons. I am going to teach you how to come to
your seat to the carpet to meet me. Okay. So, in order to do that we need to be
able to know exactly where we're going and exactly how we're
supposed to get there. Okay. So we're going to take some time, and I'm
going to show exactly where I want you to sit and how I want you to
get there quickly. Okay. So for my ELA transition, I start with
students numbers, usually alphabetically at first, and then I give them an
exact spot to sit on at the carpet. And then I explain to them exactly what I
want them to do. When you hear your number or your name, I want you to get up, push your
chair in, and come to this particular seat. Sarah, Adam, and Kayden...come. It's important to make sure students
are following your expectations on the first day of school, on the first
week of school because if students know exactly what it is you want them to do, or
in this instance exactly where it is you want them to sit, then they can rely on that
and that makes your transitions so much faster and then you can get to things
like your lesson much quicker. No. Honey, sit
right next to her. Scoot up right next to her. Scoot up right next to her. During that ELA transition, I had them
practice it over and over again because I want for them to know exactly where they sit
so that they can get there quickly. Please join me on the carpet. [inaudible noise played at fast speed] It took us one minute and eight
seconds which is not too bad. Okay. As we continue to go throughout the school
year, we are going to be looking to chop down just a little bit, second
by second at that time. Okay. But look it... everybody remembers where
they're supposed to go. Give yourselves a round of applause.
[students clapping] That was very good
for the first time. Think about where your spot is... because I am going to set the timer.
Remember it took us one minute eight seconds yesterday. Let's see if we can shave a
little bit of time off of that today. Go. [inaudible noise played at fast speed] Fifty-six seconds. Good job my friends.
Excellent work. Alright my friends,
so Brennan... Kids pick up on things - your attitude, your
behavior so you want to be very cautious of those things at the
beginning of the school year because students are looking at every piece
of you as a teacher and they're also looking at every piece
of your classroom. So you want to make sure that you're warm.
You want to make sure that your classroom is inviting, that they can see themselves
as part of this classroom and that they know that you want them to be there and that this
is a safe place for them to be throughout the school day. Alright, ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to day two of fourth grade. How are you feeling?
[students in unison] Good Did you go home yesterday
completely exhausted? [students in unison] Yes. I was so tired yesterday. Guess what? My
legs were super sore. Your's were too? My legs... So now that we've wrapped up the first week
of school, I am just scratching the surface of working with routines and procedures.
It's something I will carry with us the entire school year. At the beginning of
the year is not when you stop working on routines and procedures. And every time you
introduce something new to students you need to establish a routine and a procedure
for what it is you are introducing. ...is a signal to me that you need help on
directions just a little bit. ♪[theme music]
