One of the classes I was voluntold to teach this year is Freshman Seminar. So far, it's a love-hate. The goal of the class is to help students be better students and community members (very good). There is no grade (read leverage) and the class is a full block which makes it hard to fill. It's hard to plan for. There are days it goes really well and days it's a struggle to keep kids busy and productive for an hour and a half with a skeleton curriculum.
The good news is that some of it is open to teacher interpretation. I've establish a routine of Monday - Academic check-ins and study hall, Wednesdays social emotional curriculum, and Friday fun and community building (We only have Friday classes half the time).
I've started to enlist my board games collection. I wish I had more party games. I used Happy Salmon as an intro activity, but had to modify it due to the number of kids. I brought a bunch of small cards games for a lesson that required the kids to communicate and teach each other with some success.
Werewolf was a surprise hit. Most of the kids had played before and were really excited. I have a copy I got on sale I've never used, but one of the other kids volunteered her copy. She brought it in and another kid was pumped to be the moderator (Future note: I let them play on Friday the 13th the next week! The kids how didn't want to play I drafted for 5-Minute Dungeon which went well). I'd love to get some other games out eventually, but I'm restricting old fashioned fun to Fridays.
I've started to share my classroom with another teacher and her Freshman Seminar has started to use my board games, too!
I dug out an artifact from my first year as a teacher to use, as well.
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