I focused on making the first day of school more engaging for students this year. I didn’t want to start off by talking at students all period to go over the typical syllabus, expectations, and grades. I engaged them in activities to introduce the courses in a different way. We made learning fun and engaging!
Entrepreneurship: The Marshmallow Challenge
Students completed the Marshmallow Challenge! It’s such a fun activity for team building, problem-solving, and communication. Students were competitive and felt a little bit of pressure with the clock ticking downward. All of these skills were perfect to set the tone for running a business in class this semester. There’s a fantastic TED Talk that goes along with this activity but we didn’t have time to watch it today.
Personal Finance: Candybar Madness
I introduced the need for all students to learn about Financial Literacy through the Candybar Madness activity (slightly modified for the candy I could find). As students came into class, I had each select a small piece of candy from the basket. Each candy represented a portion of society and their financial status with the slides below. Students all agreed that they didn’t want to be Dum Dums or worse! It was a great segue into a conversation about the importance of financial literacy education. I was even able to tell them about the status of An Act for Financial Literacy in Schools (learn how to support it here).
[table “” not found /]Overall, I thought this was a great experiment to change up the first day of class. I think I’ll stick with it for next semester!
First Day: No Syllabus, Just Engaged Learning!