First Level: 3 Final Ideas

This is the final article in the “First Level” series, where we look at carefully setting up long term goals, inspired by the creator of Super Mario Bros, who only designed the first level once he had created the rest of the game.

These posts, from the Byrdseed archives, are all examples of opening activities to set up a year of worthy long term goals.

• Start your year with themes and generalizations: Organize your academic content around large, cross-curricular concept
• Creative Math Warmups: show your kids that math this year will be more than following directions to find the right answer.
• Create A Class Motto: Give your students creative freedom to develop a motto for the year using an inductive model of instruction.

Have an essential “First Level” activity you use to kick off your year and establish a goal? Please send me your ideas at: ian@byrdseed.com or tweet to @IanAByrd!