First Post of the New Year

It was a great (albeit hot) first 2 days. The kids did really well adjusting to the longer day. It can be pretty hard getting back into any routine after the lazy days of summer, but we kept things simple so everyone could ease into the rigor of First Grade :) By day 2 we had already established some pretty important routines like bathroom procedures and where to put your lunch ticket and bus tag. Woo Hoo...success!

The most important thing for me at this point in the year is to establish ourselves as a classroom community. This begins simply by getting to know each others names. Today the morning meeting challenge was to name at least 3 people in our class.
Go ahead and challenge your child to name 3 new friends. Can they name even more??!

We also started learning about some of our classroom expectations. We'll spend more time next week working on class rules, but we did practice "whole body listening."
Ask your child what parts of their body are on and what parts are off during whole body listening.

During math we began to explore our math tools to ready us for math workshop. Children used pattern blocks, Geoblocks, Unifix cubes, and power polygons. I loved walking around and seeing their structures and creations!

 

We also did a little writing. Children worked on their first memory page of the year. As the year goes on we will be writing memory pages after each memorable event. At the end of the year there will be a whole book of their first grade memories. It will also be amazing to see the transformation in their writing from start to finish. Let me tell you...they will be just as impressed as you are!! But for today the expectation was 1 sentence and 5 colors ;)

We also made time for reading! Children were able to explore some of the buckets in our library. This was the beginning of what will turn into a reader's workshop where children will learn a skill or strategy and then have time to practice the skill during independent reading time. For now they are just learning where to find books, how to care for them, and where to return them. Baby steps!! 

This year we are so LUCKY to welcome Dr. Bilsborough to our school. She is an amazing addition! She came and talked to us about her job as principal and of course read the class a story. They were all totally engaged even though it was the end of the day and probably 95 degrees in our classroom! Bring on the fall....

We really had an amazing first 2 days. I hope your kiddos came home excited (albeit tired!) after our first days together. It seems like we have a great group and I'm really excited about the year to come!

Enjoy the long weekend with your family...I plan to!