Starting a New Year

It is that time again- Me I only have a week, we go back Aug 7. I am sitting here thinking on how to begin my new year. I was lucky enough to receive several files from a teacher who is becoming an administrator. With these files I am revamping how I begin my year. I now have a PowerPoint to introduce myself, to introduce my rules, to introduce my procedures, and to outline my expectations. I am starting with teaching units within a few days to ensure that my students take school seriously in a hurry. I've also created a blog for my classes. This will allow my students to ask questions and parents can read instructions and find due dates for assignments.

Other thoughts- I learned last year that it is a bad idea to put a signature page on the same page as the syllabus. I ended up with signed syllabi and my students did not have a copy of their own. So this year I am making it a separate page. I also doubled the length of my syllabus to address my policies on several things that come up like tardies, late work, being absent, and plagarism. It is better to have decided how to handle these and inform students ahead of time what will happen.

I am also adding a new requiremnet to my classes- an end of class activty. We have bellwork everyday but at the end of class my students start packing up and I lose 2 minutes. So my plan is to take back those 2 minutes. During their final few minutes of class students will write a 4-6 sentence summary of what they learned or did that day.

Each day their journal will include the date, the agenda, their bellwork, and a summary. I believe this will cut down on the number of students who are confused after being absent. They can now ask any classmate what they missed. I'm also expecting my students to have a clearer vision of what we are accomplishing and what our goals are.

I need more ideas on team building lessons and get to know you activities. Any thoughts?