Steppin' Up Step Up Day

     In my school we have a tradition called Step Up Day.  Students get to spend an hour with their new teacher.  This year the fourth grade team lobbied for an extended time frame with our third graders.  They come from a different school and they are all a bit nervous. They are coming from being the oldest to being the youngest in a school.  Their test scores take a serious hit because our high-stakes testing is at the beginning of October, before they have fully acclimated to the new school.  This year we got to spend an hour and fifteen minutes with our new kids.  I wanted to take this extended time to get to know my students both personally and academically.  So I choose activities where I could do both.  Although I did this for Step Up Day, you could just as easily do these on the first day of school.  This is what we did:
Activity:  Me, Too!
Time:  15-30 minutes, depending on class size and student interest
Goals:  1.  to learn about students interests
           2.  to assess oral language fluency
Start by seating students in a circle.  The teacher starts off first.  Stand up and say a short, general sentence about yourself- your favorite food, subject, hobbies, places you have been, pets, etc.  I started with:  "I have a dog." Anyone who matches that sentence (In my case, they also have a dog) stand up.  Next,  choose a person to walk up to and elaborate on the sentence.  The trick is, I have to use at least 7 words in my sentence.  I call this a 7-up sentence.  My follow-up sentence was:  "I have an adorable Shih Tzu named Louisiana Belle that we rescued from a shelter."  The person you go up too also has to say a 7-up sentence about your topic.  Once I am done, I sit down, and the person I picked has to say a short sentence on another topic.  
     Continue playing, encouraging students to choose people that haven't been picked yet.  If it happens that you have a student who says a sentence that no one in the classroom has a connection with (I had one student who was taking flying lessons), celebrate that person's uniqueness by giving them a round of applause.  And don't forget that 7-up sentence!  Eventually you will find that there are a few students who have not stood up or not been called on.  Have them stand up and give a 7-up sentence about themselves and give them a round of applause.
     As the students play, note which students have a hard time coming up with such a long sentence.  Does their oral language lack describing words (particularly adjectives and adverbs)?  Do they use specific nouns and verbs?  Can they support their statements with phrases, clauses, and linking words like because?  Weakness in oral language can indicate difficulties with writing and reading.  If you have several students who found this task challenging, you might want to see the Whole Brain Teaching website.  There are many videos about creating a classroom with rich oral language.
Activity:  Filling Book Baskets
Time:  15-30 minutes
Goals:  1.  to learn about students interests
           2.  to learn which students can pick good-fit books
     My own students actually came up with this idea.  They really wanted to be a part of showing them around my extensive classroom library and checking to see if the books were good fit.  But, alas, they had to be in their sixth grade classrooms at the same time. I learned that most of my class are typical end-of-third grade readers, in that they pick a book based on the cover, not by checking the level as well.  Oh well, they will learn!
Activity:  Art and Writing
Time:  15-30 minutes, depending on the task
Goals:  1.  to learn about students interests
           2.  to assess their ability to draw with details, handwriting, and task persistence
     I wanted an art project that I could display in my classroom to make the students feel welcomed when they arrived in August.  I choose Ready-to-Decorate All About Me 3-D Balloons from Really Good Stuff.  This had a little drawing and a little writing.  Students could make it as simple or as complicated as they wished.  It was very open-ended.  I learned which students breeze through assignments with shoddy workmanship.  I learned which students had trouble with written/multi-step directions.  I learned who the artistic students were.
     Do you have Step Up Day at your school?  What do you do?  I'd love your comments below.