Saving my Voice and a Classroom Scavenger Hunt

I just wrapped up my 2nd week of school.  The first week was spent going over classroom expectations and procedures and setting up our Interactive Science Notebooks.  I am always amazed at how much time it takes to do both of those things, but I honestly can't imagine NOT doing them.  I think that going over my expectations and how I want my classroom to "run" is muy importante.

In the past years, I would spend about 2 days going over expectations and procedures and by the end of those 2 days, I was usually without a voice.  Seriously, I can't believe how much I talked on those days (and for 6 different class periods)!  And apparently, the whole "no voice" thing wasn't a big enough clue to me that I was doing too much teacher-talk, because I just kept doing the same thing year after year.  No lie, I had to borrow a microphone and speaker from another teacher to amplify my whisper, just so that my students could hear me!  This year, I finally got the hint and I did things differently.

This year, I created a Classroom Expectations, Procedures and Safety Scavenger Hunt around my classroom.  I had 31 task cards in various locations around the room and the students had an Interactive Science Notebook booklet that I created for them to answer questions in.  The students were instructed to roam around and find all 31 of the cards.  When they found a numbered card, they opened their booklet to that same number and found a related question that could only be answered by reading that specific card.  This forced the students to be moving around (not sleeping at their desks, while I mindlessly fed them information) and they had to read (which is never a bad thing.....painful for some of them, but that's a different issue.)  And the best part.....  I still have my voice.

This scavenger hunt freed me up to facilitate and assist any struggling students (although there weren't too many problems).  I was able to take care of a lot of that first week paperwork and I knew that my students would still be prepared for my class and the very picky expectations that I have for them.  The activity still took 2 days, but for this, it is always time well spent in my opinion.  Of course, I still went over a few of the really important ones (like my homework policy, late work policy, what to do when you're absent, what will happen if they are disrespectful with a sub, etc...), but it was quick because they already knew the answers.  I could just ask what the expectation was and they quickly gave me an answer.  It was wonderful!

Here are some pics of the Task Cards I used:

And a few pics of the student Scavenger Hunt booklet that accompanied the task cards:

If you are interested, I have created a product that will give you access to the task cards and Interactive Science Booklet I created to go along with them, in addition to editable versions that will allow you to customize both the task cards and ISN booklet to your own needs.  You can access it HERE in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.