Post it Activity - Student Interests

In a previous post I shared my Student Interest Inventory (a first day handout).  Once I give the kiddos a chance to fill out the form (or when we have extra time), I give each kid four post-its.  And I ask them to DRAW four of the things they said they liked on the form.  (I know, I am an evil-mutant-science-teacher.) They usually complain because most high school kids do not like to draw, so I tell them they can look at their page and find the four things they feel best about drawing.  

When the complaining ends, I have them turn in the post-its either by sticking the post-its to the Student Interest Inventory (especially if they need extra time after their safety test, or any other time that they finish faster than expected), or by placing their post-its on the paper for their class period.  Sometimes I prefer to place the post-its on the paper.  Sometimes the papers are color coded for each class period.  Sometimes the papers for each period are exactly the same size ... sometimes things just don't go according to plan.  I leave these up until after Meet the Teacher Night (3 weeks in).  It allows me to see interests in a quick glance and I think it looks super cool.  

Obviously, if you have nothing better to do with your time the first week of school, and you have an excess of clear tape, you should totally tape down the bottoms of all the post-its so they aren't flapping around.  I have never had enough time to even seriously consider this as an option.  

I started this many years ago after seeing a work of art created by many artists on post-its.  I tried to find a link for it, and have not found it yet.  These obviously aren't works of art, but it does show common themes, and given a visual representation of all my kiddos without any kid being singled out too much.