Sorting out what's important from what's not

I showed up at school this morning to find boxes and boxes of books and papers all over my classroom, a strange new object stuck to my board along with all sorts of weird electronic attachments, and the huge mess I had made of my room pulling objects out of cupboards and preparing and sorting out and generally getting ready for the school year.

Where to start?

So I thought about the first day. What's really important?

I'm not planning to hand out the books the first day. On the other hand, I can't have umpteen boxes clobbering half my room either. So I pulled out what I knew I would need, packed up what will be stored for later and labelled everything clearly. No need now to sort through exit tickets or assessments so I stuffed them into the nearest empty space and promptly forgot about them until next week.

I essentially did the same with the mess. I thought about what I would really need to use during the first week of school and put those supplies in an easily accessible place, then made a pile of unsorted papers in an out of the way place to be sorted out later, and stuffed all unnecessary goodies back in the cupboard for when I would need them. (Knowing how these things go, I'll probably not sort the papers until mid-October.)

Then I turned to the Mimeo. I figured I'd install the software and turn it on and if anything went wrong, I would simply put it off until later also. Only it worked like a charm and I was able to give myself a quick tutorial so that I can run my slides using the whiteboard on the first day--cool! I was also excited to see that there is a Mimeo Community with lesson plans and ideas--saved the link on my computer--someday...

So what's really important? Answering the following questions: What am I going to do on the first day of school to invite my students to like and do math?  How will I begin empowering them?

Over the summer, I've created a Google Slides presentation inviting them to a math party.  What will we do at this party?--Play games! Watch Videos! Do Math! So I devoted the last several hours to going through what games and puzzles I intend to use and watching videos that I'd like to use with my first day presentation. I put a lot of thought into how this is going to look in the various different classes. Will the same game I use for Algebra 1 still be enough to entertain Pre-calculus? How am I going to modify the presentation for my Calculus class? How much time is this going to take and should I send them home with some sort of puzzle for homework?  It needs to be catchy, it needs to be fun and right now, it needs to not feel like MATH. We'll reserve that part for day 2.

Now everything is as ready to go as I can make it. I wish I had the weekend to come in and work because I would accomplish a lot if I could be here both days, but I have a commitment I can't weasel out of. I'll probably think of 50 things between now and Sunday when I get home. I may even spend Sunday evening here at the school, but I feel like I am at least ready to walk into the classroom Monday and say to my students "You're invited! Let's party!"