Survived Day One of Sixth Grade

I'm not gonna lie...it wasn't stellar.  I mean...it wasn't awful, but it wasn't exactly what I was aiming for.  They definitely have much, much more energy than I am used to.  But I'll adjust that.  I just have a more low key management style based on relationships and mutual respect, and I think I'm going to have to be a bit more authoritarian than I am typically comfortable with.  But I'm going to make mild adjustments today and go from there.

I didn't spend the day on rules and such.  There was a brief introduction.  They filled out a little questionnaire which included four agree/disagree statements about their attitudes toward math.  Then, they worked in their groups on the Marshmallow Challenge.  Time is more limited than I'm used to which meant that I had to cut time shorter than ideal to allow for the follow-up conversation that I was after.

Aside from my five classes (some of which grew quite a bit between seating chart and the start of class), I teach one Reteach class.  That is my largest group and they were quite rambunctious but it a not altogether bad way.  We opened with an Estimation 180 task and they were fantastic.  The discussions I heard in their groups were fabulous and when we started sharing estimations, some of them automatically justified their reasoning.  We honed up the precision with units a bit and they were golden for a first attempt.

Then they worked in their groups on the Four Fours Puzzle and went at it like champs.  I was worried that their background knowledge of grouping symbols might be too weak to make this work but it was right at the sweet spot.  They didn't go there automatically but with nudging, they were thrilled to remember how parenthesis could help them communicate the sequence they intended.  I was pretty proud of this group's start to the year.

So, there's that.  No flowery pictures or videos because time is at a premium.
Today's objectives:
(1) Strengthen behavioral expectations.
(2) Compile ideas on group norms from last night's homework.
(3) Discuss the importance of failure...complete with video clips and journals.  :)

Have a great day, y'all!