What a great first week of first grade! Boy, it was a long 5-day week because we had SO much to do and had such a blast doing it. We were so exhausted by 2:45 on Friday afternoon and we have a 3-day weekend to rest up for another fabulous week with our Tiger Team.
We have done lots of activities and projects this week to learn more about each other and about rules and procedures for our first grade classroom.
We started off our very first day reading one of Mrs. Maggart's favorite books:
We talked about how we were all feeling differently and that was okay...soon our jitters would go away too!
We made a graph to see how other people were feeling in our classroom.
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| Look! There were other people feeling just like I was! |
Then, we followed the directions on our Direction Board.
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| We are hard at work creating our very own portraits! |
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| Hmm...I wonder if this looks just like me? |
We read a Kevin Henkes book about a little mouse with a very different name.
Because she had a different name, the other mice teased her and used words that crumbled her heart. We talked about how our words can crumble people too. We passed around Mr. Crumbles and said something mean to him, each time crumbling a piece of him. He was a mess! So, we apologized one by one and tried to smooth him out, but no matter how hard we tried, he didn't look the same. We promised to never use such words again to anyone because we did not want to crumble anyone the way we crumbled Mr. Crumbles. We each signed a bandaid to make that promise and patched Mr. Crumbles up as best we could!
We talked about R.J.'s solution to this problem. Then, we wanted to test how well WE listen and followed directions. So, we did a Busy Bear activity, listening closely to Mrs. Maggart's directions on how to color our bears.
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| Wow! I followed all of the directions! |
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| Look at use listening! |
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| See? It looks the same! |
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| Hmm...I can even measure my tools WITH a tool! |
There are lots of new rules and procedures in first grade. It is so important that we write our name and date on EVERYTHING. If we don't, it ends up in the "No Name" den, waiting to be claimed. Mrs. Maggart pleaded with us to always check the den because on Fridays when she cleaned the room, she would have to toss out any unwanted papers. We were so great about making sure all of our work was wanted!
If we ever finish our work up early, we can choose a fun activity from the "I'm Done" board. There are so many language arts and math activities for us to do. Wow...how can we ever get bored?!
Each morning in first grade, we will be working on spelling and making words. This week, we had to learn 17 pretty important words: the names of all of our Tiger Team teammates. We had to unscramble names and find out whose name was whose. We were such rock star spellers!
We read a book about invisible buckets and how those buckets can be filled and emptied. That affects how we feel each and every moment of our day.
So, we created our own buckets and then wrote messages to each other to fill our buckets up! What a fun way to get to know each other AND feel great!
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| Look at his bucket! |
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| Getting to know each other |
In our classroom, we come to school each day and practice our 6 rules. Ask me to tell you each rule and show you the motions that help me remember each!
Sometimes we sit for a long time while we're learning so we love to stand up and take a break...a brain break that is! Ask me which brain break was my favorite this week!
If we are synergizing as a class, we can earn compliments for our leadership behavior. For each 25 baseballs we earn, we earn a class prize!
Then, we headed to the cafeteria for a Sharpen Your Saw Pep Rally!
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| What a blast! |
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| AND...it was Mrs. Snow's birthday!!! The entire school sang to her! |
We also recieved a special letter one afternoon from someone who calls herself the Desk Fairy. We thought it was pretty cool but we didn't think anything of it. But guess what?? On Friday morning we came in and found that she had been in our classroom and had passed out some special awards AND special goodies!
We finished our week by learning about the holiday on Monday that is the reason for us not attending school. We read about it in our book.
We talked about OUR classroom jobs and how each job is important to keep our classroom clean and running smoothly. Then, we choose the 3 jobs we would like to have this school year. We can't wait to learn what our new jobs are on Tuesday.
We are such a classroom of leaders because that is what we all agreed we want to be. Not peacebreakers like the silly character David we read about.
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| This is our class promise and we each signed it! |
Love,
