Forming First Week Bonds with Students

Quiet halls, slowly fill with chattering whispers of the first to arrive. The excitement builds as the conversations become louder and students find their friends. I hear the crowd as it nears the corner to my hallway. Several familiar faces smile and wave as they see me. Others cordially grin and walk past me. Then a few begin to loiter about reading over their schedules. Two bubbly girls look my way and begin to walk over. I greet them at my classroom door, they say hello and enter. A few more trickle in as I make my salutations. They look around the room for a seating chart, not spotting one, they choose seats near their friends. I stand at the door observing the myriad of personalities.

The classroom is full of energetic but wary students. I tell them this is a flexible, choice seating design. They can sit where they want and that will become their permanent seat. They smile and look at one another. I tell them they can move about and get comfortable while I take roll. They do. They hunker down into their newly chosen learning space. Then the chatter softens and ends as I stand before their eager faces.

"Rather than go over a syllabus or tell you the class rules, I have set up stations around the room where you will answer questions and discover new things about 7th grade, this classroom and me." They seem relieved to start off the day with the ability to move about and talk with their friends. "Station 4 asks you to come and introduce yourself to me", they seem uneasy, "you will walk over, look me in the eye, introduce yourself with your first and last name and any nick name you may have. You will shake my hand and then tell me three things you find the most awesome about yourself and want to share with me." They smile with caution but then begin dispersing to different stations.

One by one they came, all six classes, and shook my hand, made eye contact, and told me three amazing things about themselves. I asked them questions and they were so pleased to tell me stories, and ask me questions. It was the best first day activity yet. I told each one of them that now we have gotten to know one another and I will remember you because you are unique and awesome. They all left smiling and more at ease about me and their new class. The next two days of school have come and gone and I have learned all 160 names, and we have such a great positive classroom community. Each unique and quirky, each diverse and respectful. They now see me as a person who cares and listens and is truly interested in them.

So the first day bonding with students was achieved. The next day we talked about our community and students wrote the goals and expectations they had for an engaging, challenging, student-centered, humorous, rigorous, enthusiastic science class: their words. Having spoken with every student individually, has created a comfortable, trusting place for students to make mistakes, discover and inquire, and have fun in the learning process. They feel like we are a community not a room of desks and chairs. It is so important to set the tone day one. To look them in the eye and say "Hello, I will be your teacher this year, welcome to the adventure."