VNPS Setting the Tone for the New School Year

by Rachel Delaney August 26, 2021

Starting a new school year is never easy, there is are always many uncertainties that come along with a new year. These can include, new students, new behaviours, new lessons and curriculums. Many teachers find the start of the school year both exciting and nerve racking as a new routine needs to be put in place so that the students can learn in a safe and fun environment.Wipebook Flipcharts are one of the many tools that teachers can use the first week of school in order to set a good stage for their students to know that this classroom is safe space for everyone. Wipebook Flipchart can be used in many different ways to create conversation and fun in your classroom!!

Vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNPS) allow students to work around the classroom, they are usually chalkboards or whiteboard. The students are not sitting near these surfaces, they are wall mounted and students can move freely between them. VNPS promotes students to stand up and be mobile as they learn, it allows students to collaborate together and get to know one another while working off of each others ideas.

VNPS is a great way to get students to get to know one another during the first couple of weeks of school. By putting students in random groups around the classroom and encouraging them to interact and collaborate, students feel more comfortable with one another and they can then see that they have become a unified classroom. The Wipebook Flipchart is the perfect tool for VNPS!!

A fun activity for the first week of school is to give the students a mystery to solve, they will be given different clues to solve the mystery. You would first put the students in random groups and assign each student with a Wipebook Flipchart. They can brain storm, write down ideas and the questions on their Flipcharts as a way to collaborate together. Students love being up out of their seats talking to each other and this is fun way for them to chat and get to know one another on the first week back.

Another activity that I have used the flip charts for is “Finish the question”, the students will have different math word problems on Flipcharts around the classroom. The students will be given a certain amount of time at each question and then will be asked to rotate, the students will then have to pick up where their classmates have left off. This will create some fun math conversation between classmates and provide students with the opportunity to understand each others math strategies.

My last activity is to use ANY of the Make Math Moment word problems with your students, have the question and video projected on your screen and provide the students with Flipchart to collaborate and solve the problem. Make Math Moments has so many different questions for all math topics and students love the visual aids that they provide.

The ultimate goal for the first couple of weeks of school is to get students to work together and understand that their new classroom environment is open and promotes collaboration. Wipebook Flipchart and VNPS are a great start to creating that environment in your classroom!