First Week of School

First off, I want to say that I have the CUTEST darn class ever. They are just the sweetest bunch of kids and are SO funny! We've all loved every day of the week so far, and I'm so excited for my year with them. Oh, I didn't even mention. I have TWINS! :) Yes, two adorable, sweet, unique twins that I absolutely adore.

The first day went well, I only had one person show up that wasn't on my roster, and 2 that withdrew so I'm at a total of 16 now, which is a great number. We did lots of routines, songs, brain breaks, and books. We learned about ways to be helpful, made our safe keeper sticks, a class book, started our self portraits, and learned about mathematicians and scientists. All in all it was a smooth and fun day!

Safe Keeper Sticks - Click Here for More Information On This

The rest of the week has been going just as smoothly. One of my students that was on my roster didn't show up until Thursday, so that shook things up a bit, but our class welcomed her with open arms and are happy to have a new addition to the class family.

To help build community and a sense of belonging in our class, we created our School Family Book that we keep in our class library. I read this as part of our morning meeting activity on the 2nd day of school. It was a fun way to get to know each other better.

We also did All About Me bags which were GREAT! I learned so much about my kids and loved some of the creative things they brought in to show the class.

Sharing our "All About Me Bags"

We read the book The Way I Act then created a chart of ways to be helpful getting ideas from the book and from things they know are helpful in school/class.

We took pictures of the kids acting the things out, which they loved. We made that into a Ways to Be Helpful Board which will stay up all year long to remind the kids, and we'll add ideas as we see things though out the years.

Probably my favorite thing we do all year is our beginning of the year self portraits. It adds so much warmth, creativity, color, and uniqueness to the class. I love seeing their self portraits and this years class did an amazing job of really using the mirrors as they drew and painted.

To start this process I model how to draw a self portrait and what to look for when using the mirror. I then have the kids sketch themselves with mirrors using only a pencil.

On Day 2, I model tracing over my pencil markings with a black marker. I also demonstrate how to use water colors to achieve different colors, etc. I do this on my own self portrait and on a blank piece of paper. I let them go to town on theirs emphasizing it should be their own skin and hair color - not blue, green or purple….even though I still had two kids do a red and blue face..lol!

On day 3, we cut out things that we like from magazines and glue them to the backgrounds of our self portraits. After that, we laminate and we're done! We will share these on Friday! :) Didn't they turn out AWESOME? I just love them! Not only do they make the classroom, but they are SO telling of their developmental stages.

We're learning about mathematicians and what they do, the tools they use, representing knowledge, vocabulary, etc. On day 2 of we had a "mathematician tool exploration". I set up centers allowing the kids to explore, play, and use the manipulatives we will be working with all year. Doing this greatly eliminates unnecessary or inappropriate play with these later on in the year, and gets them excited to work with the materials. They did really well with this, with almost no teacher interventions. They're such a curious, calm, and sweet class!

                     

           

In addition, we learned about scientist…what they do, who they are, what they think and say. We explored the scientific method with the "Leak Proof Bag" Experiment from Steve Spangler. 

It totally stumped them! It was the perfect example of the process, and really got my kids excited to come up their own scientific questions/experiments. We then did Science Tool Exploration. This took a bit longer than expected so I had to break it up between two days. They explored safety goggles, scales,  microscope, magnifying glass, stop watches, thermometers, rocks, and magnets. 

This week we REALLY focused on learning about the safe spot and how to properly use it. We started off by reading Schubert's Helpful Day from the Becky Bailey curriculum to discuss how to use our big voice and ways to be helpful if we notice a friend is in need.

We then practiced the routines, acted out what it looks like when someone needs to use the safe spot, and created this book. We will keep this in the safe spot along with Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses.

I read this book to them to teach them to always look on the bright side and see the magic in everything (we also have blue sparkly sunglasses in the safe spot to go with the book).

This picture is amazing to me! It's so accurate! 

It was a long week but a successful one! Looking forward to seeing my kiddos again tomorrow! As always please leave any questions or comments below! :)