First Week Wrap-Up

Back to School News!

The first week back was certainly productive. Today I had a couple of moments where I could begin to feel the classroom community take shape. This afternoon, it was heartwarming to sit back and watch groups of children engaged in different "free" centers. The children were too cute while they played with a partner or in a group. The best part of their free center time was that they enjoyed the company of their classmates. Another precious moment was playing four corners during indoor P.A.. Actually, the game wasn't precious - it was the excitement and movement that surfaced while I played some Kids Bop songs. It's imperative to have those times where you can watch "kids be kids". I'm thrilled to have a group that has such great taste in music.

The pictures at the top show the kids in their line during four corners (you can't tell that they were walking/dancing/singing). The other pictures show the children during Friday Free Choice Centers. I loved seeing the children unbiased and playing together. I love first grade!

Above, the kids were sitting through Cafeteria Orientation on the first day of school. The best question came from one of my kids......"When can we eat?"

haha! We headed to Orientation w/ our lunch boxes, etc., and had to listen to Mrs. Harper share important rules and information before it was our lunch time. Too cute of a question!

 

Routines, Routines, Routines, Procedures, Procedures, Procedures.......

We are First Graders and this is what it looks like when......



We record important information in our Daily Folders......

We wait patiently, quietly, and in a straight line, outside, during fire drills.

We "square up" with the Morning Message Board

The kids have done such a fantastic job learning class expectations and they are definitely ready to be challenged and explore our content areas. Next week we'll experience more of a typical schedule with less drilling of routines and procedures. I am anticipating a lively and creative bunch during our various workshops. Next week we'll start exploring more indpendent work and center activities. We'll be working on listening closely to teacher directions, following teacher models, taking part in guided practice, and eventually starting and completing tasks independently.

The kids did well with a compare and contrast activity; except in the EQ, I used the words same and different so we would have something to talk about at the lesson opening. (We explored the vocabulary: Compare, Contrast, and Venn Diagram.) Using hula hoops to compare and contrast always helps the students since the items are tangible. First we looked at what we knew about Kindergarten, next we shared what we knew about first grade (with some read alouds before, during, and after), finally - the kids came up with the conclusion that first grade is awesome and we get to do a lot of the same things they thought they would miss (recess, lunch with friends, etc.). Our firsties are up for the challenge of first grade because they're pretty excited about doing "more work"/"harder work", and "writing in their EQ Journals".

 

My very own First Grader and Kindergartener