This week was my first full stretch as the new 6th, 7th, and 8th grade social studies teacher at St. Ursula Villa. With only three days on the books, I do not have the time or space to reflect on every class and every moment. Instead, I am going to highlight some lessons that stood out. Not because it was the best, but because it captured what I want this year to feel like.
Building More Than Community
On the very first day, I leaned on a few familiar tools: Sketch and Tell-o, Thin Slides, and Frayers to build community and get to know my students. The funny thing is, Villa already has an incredibly strong community. Many of these kids have been together for years, and each grade only has 30 to 40 students. So yes, the “Frayer a Friend” activity was a little redundant, but I wanted to give them practice with these frames we will use all year.
The next day, I put those same tools to work for something bigger: creating a class mission statement.
From Sketches to Statements
We started with a Sketch and Tell-o. I asked students to visualize what they feel is most important in a classroom environment. Four minutes to sketch, a quick explanation, then each student narrowed their ideas to a single word. They shared those words with a partner, and together we pulled out the common threads.
Next came the index card Thin Slide. On one side, students wrote three to four words that felt essential. On the back, they drafted a personal mission statement using those words. I modeled what that might look like first. Many students had already written personal mission statements before, so the leap to classroom mission came naturally.
Then came my favorite part. We took those mission statements into ShortAnswer. Students typed them in, and we ran a battle royale. They read, debated, and narrowed them down round by round until one statement stood at the top. That collective ownership mattered.
We closed with a Frayer Model of the chosen mission statement, thinking through what it looks like student to student, teacher to student, student to teacher, and student to classroom. By the end, the words were theirs, the mission was theirs, and the expectations were theirs.
Why It Mattered
Was the lesson perfect? No. But it checked the box I care about most right now: students shaping the environment they want to learn in. The protocols gave them structure, and the process gave them voice.
That is a pretty good way to start a year.
Moler's Musings 