I recently searched for some ideas for the first week of school to see if there were any fresh, new ideas out there. I came across this tweet from Caitin Tucker on how to use stations to get through the business of starting the school year. Anyone that knows me knows I love stations for so many reasons. Mostly they speak to me because they get students out of a desk. Stations can also be designed to be collaborative.
Why use stations on the first day of school
The station rotation that I have come up with (based on Caitlin Tucker’s ideas) is designed to build community, cover expectations of the course, and review materials. Students will move in collaborative groups and interact with each other. They will share ideas and questions and learn about rules, the course, conduct, and many other things.
The stations
There are six stations in this activity. The idea is to get students to socialize with each other, review, and learn about expectations. Students will also have the opportunity to self-evaluate their skills from the previous year and develop some goals. Here is what each station consists of and how to set it up.
Station #1:
This station consists of using your walls to review previously taught concepts, ideas, and the basics of signing. You will need to make sure you have some bulletin boards/wall space set up with review materials. This can be vocabulary words, grammar structures, and tips for student success in your class. Students travel around the room and take notes about what they read and see on the wall space. This activity can be digital or offline depending on your preference. For my stations, I used these bulletin board sets:
- Tips for Students – This set has 8 posters covering some of the basics of signing like where to look when others sign, how to fingerspell, how to be successful in the ASL class, and many other tips.
- There is More to a Sign – This set covers the parameters plus other skills to remember when signing like eye contact and facial expressions.
- Growth Mindset – These colorful posters remind students that if they change how they think, they can be better at what they do.
- Classroom Rules – These cover 7 basic rules for the class.
- Five Parameters of a Sign – This one is simple, review the 5 parameters for creating signs.
- The Pathway to Proficiency – This bulletin board set covers the levels of proficiency and where students should be at in each level. Underneath the board is a better explanation of each level. I have the chevron pattern posted but you can also get this in the pencil set that matches the video explanations below.
- Steps for Success When Recording – This set is a reminder to students on how to create and record videos.
I have one other board that helps students remember basic signs for communicating and staying in the target language when they don’t understand what is being said. It is the Survival Signs Bulletin Board Set.
Other bulletin board ideas can be Famous Deaf People, Deaf President Now, The ABCs, Classifiers, or even an overview of Grammar Rules.
Station #2:
This station focuses on expectations of student behavior. In station #1 students viewed class rules. In this station, students will look over rules of conduct and the consequences of poor behavior in class. This station has students create skits that can be viewed in class on day #2. You can even add student involvement here by having them come up with their own code of conduct for behavior and the consequences. This station is done online.
Station #3:
This station focuses on your syllabus and course expectations. Students will have a worksheet that forces them to answer questions in a scavenger hunt-style activity. This can be done online or offline or in a blended environment. You can find a scavenger hunt worksheet and other ideas in this first-week activity.
Station #4:
This station is intended to be a collaborative activity (really they all are, but this is more so than others). Place an image or an actual artifact (like a real TTY or a photo of old hearing aides that went on the entire body) and have students discuss and discover what the item is. You will get some great answers! This can be a blended activity or totally online or offline.
Station #5:
This station is for students to evaluate themselves in the skills they have acquired. This station will also communicate with you how students are feeling about jumping into the school year. They may need more review time or they may want to keep moving forward with new content.
Station #6:
This station allows students to complete work from stations #1 – #5 that they ran out of time on.
Additional Tips
You can read more on how to set up your learning stations here. You can also create your own first-day stations. You can find ideas on how to create stations here. As you can see, the stations can be set up online or offline or blended where some things are offline yet others are online. It really depends on your preference and how many devices you have to work with.
Happy first week of school.
Do you want an already-made worksheet for this activity? Click here.
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