So you just got your own classroom and you’re like, what in the world am I supposed to do to make sure that these kids learn about each other and know about each other and become a classroom community.
Like how does that happen? Enter the mystery bag. I know she looks just like a brown paper bag with something stuck on it. And that’s because she is. That’s what makes it so simple, so easy. I’m gonna tell you what I do on the first day of school.
I make my own mystery bag. It’s a whole to do. It’s like, woo, mystery. Nothing special about it. It’s just a brown paper bag with something stuck on it. But that makes it the perfect activity. So I usually put three to four objects in the bag. I limited to three to four. You’ll see why. And then I pull them out one by one, making it a whole big deal. And I tell the kids why that object represents something about me.
Sometimes I forget to do this before the first day of school, so I’ll just walk around my classroom quickly before the school day starts. I’ll put in like a yellow marker cuz my favorite color is yellow. Or I’ll put in a picture of my two dogs cuz I have two dogs. Like, there’s really nothing more to it than that, but it helps the kids get to know me a little bit more, like breaks down the barrier of awkwardness a little bit.
And then I send the kids home with a brown paper to that bag, but bag and some directions. So the directions are here. They’re also my teacher drive. I’m gonna show them to you right now. I will also preface this by saying I never give homework. So this is very rare. And the directions are pretty simple and they don’t have to bring it back the next, because over the next week or so, you’re gonna have one or two kids share every day. I usually have like three or four kids share every day. So we get it over with and they get to know a lot about each other. And they also get to practice their listening skills, and they also get to practice their silent signals.