First Day of First Grade!
We had a GREAT first day of First Grade! It was HOT, HOT, HOT and muggy in our classroom, so I wouldn't be surprised if your children come home exhausted---from the busy day and weather! First days are filled with a lot of practice: routines, procedures, and emergency drills. Sometimes, the most boring (but important) things are what the students remember when parents ask them what they did at school. Besides the fire drill, lockdown drill, and class rules/agreements, we did several other things!
These blog posts will be great conversation starters! Once you or your child see a picture of something that happened in class, they will be reminded of what we did and hopefully be able to tell you all about it. Here's a little table talk for when you see your child at breakfast in the morning (since maybe you're reading this once they are already in bed for the evening tonight!).
Listen to the story with your child by clicking below!
After taking our First Grade Survey of feelings on the first day of school, it was evident we had some scared and nervous friends. So, we read the book, First Day Jitters. It's all about a teacher who was so nervous on the first day of school, she hid under her covers! Then, we read the poem Jitter Juice, and drank some Jitter Juice that Mrs. Powell made! It helped the butterflies fly right out of our tummies!
We learned that First Grade is not exactly like Kindergarten. One major difference is that we do not have a rest time! Snack time is our time to relax, chill, and turn our brains off for a few minutes. We have a snack, and watch a short video. It's the one time of day we can lay down, stretch out, and have a little quiet time. Other than that, we are working and playing hard!
We also dabbled just a TINY bit into Daily 5 today. Daily 5 is when the teachers work with students in guided reading groups, and the students rotate through stations that focus on language/literacy/writing. You'll hear more about those stations later. Today, we talked about good fit books. Ask your child about Mrs. Powell trying to borrow and wear other people's shoes! More about that later, too!
Our job during the Read to Self station is to practice independent reading. This is where your child will read good fit books at his/her reading level, as well as enjoying books of interest. We will work hard to build reading stamina so that students are able to sit and read for 15-20 minutes at a time. Today, we made it two minutes. We will keep trying and graphing our reading stamina in our Student Data Notebooks.
Lastly, THANK YOU SO MUCH for all of the supplies! We really aim for a "one and done" when it comes to asking for supplies that need to be purchased! This stash should get us through the year with an occasional exception of band-aids and tissues.
Look for more posts often in the first weeks/months of school, and then we will taper down to about once/week on Fridays! If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me!
Have a great evening!
