First Day of First Grade

OH MY GOODNESS...I thought I was tired last week! LOL What a FUN first day of school. Room 312 was full of UH-MAZ-ING littles!

REMINDERS:

• Water bottles should have a sport or straw top...(unspillable as possible)
• We will eat snacks about 2:30 as we are packing up each day. (Healthy Snacks please)
• Shorts or long pants and tennis shoes for P.E. on Monday and Thursday

We started our day just working in a let's get back into the groove packet.  Everyone worked hard.  I found that everyone was able to figure out what to do on each page as well!  Several even read the directions to me!!! WOO HOO

Once everyone was accounted for we jumped right in! We did some procedural things...practicing recess and lunch! Then we came in unpacked our backpacks and found our hooks.  Hooks are a TIGHT SQUEEZE...so it is going to be very important that they be as EMPTY as possible!

Our story today was The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn

In this story, Chester is nervous about going to school.  Mother raccoon tells him a secret about a kissing hand.  Make sure to ask your little what a kissing hand is...(Mother kisses the palm of Chester's left hand and her love for him rushes up his arm and into his heart.  When ever he feels sad or lonely Chester can press his hand to his face and know he is loved!).

We then made a circle map (well a hand map) of feelings we could have on the first day of school...

 I was VERY impressed by some of the feelings the littles came up with!  After brainstorming the way we could feel about the first day of school I sent them back to complete the sentence..._______ felt _______
on the first day of school.  And took pictures of them sporting their BEST feeling face!  They did amazing!  I will be adding photos and videos as soon as I check with all of you!! If you checked yes your child can be in the yearbook and photographed on the info snap then we are good to go. As students finished their sentence and their kissing hand we completed a class chart.  We will use this to read from tomorrow!

All that and it was time to go to REAL recess and lunch.  Whew...it was warm out there!  Thank goodness for the shade!

After lunch we had read a loud and bathroom break.  

It was already time for Math.  Oh boy...We talked about a new word to many. SUBATIZING...

Subatizing is when you can look at a group of things and "just know how many there are!"  We talked about games that used dice. We often don't need to count those dots any more we can just "look and know"! 

I then showed the class different cards with dots in different arrangements... They told me what they saw! But we didn't stop there...I asked, "HOW did you see them?"

 There are 5. I see four on the top and one more. That makes 5! I see two and 3 more that makes 5 too!

 I see 6.  I see 4 on the top and two on the bottom that makes 6.  I see four like on a die and two more. That makes 6!

I see 8. 6 in the middle and two on the sides.  I see 4 in the middle and two on the top and two on the bottom that makes six! (Wow 3 addends!)

And then we played a concentration game.  They had to make matches of cards that had the same quantity. Some were dot cards, some were numerals and some had hands... After we played and I had a chance to visit with the groups and even had some explain their thinking to me (on video...will share if possible) it was time to reflect.

I asked the littles if they knew what a reflection was, "OF course it's when you look in the mirror and see yourself!" I love it!  I told them as mathematicians we were going to reflect on what we did and learned today.  I gave them some sentence starters... Here is what we came up with!(I notice I forgot some "" in those reflections...)

After math we had a few minutes to write about our first day of school. Let me share some of them...

Lauren wrote, "we Did moerme wrKe. we Did math. we went to the plagrond." 

Sepano wrote, "TodaY i felt happy im having fun its grat here."

Kate wrote, "I culr to day."

Thai wrote, "I lerned how to subatiz"

Rachel wrote, "In the first Day of school I was reday for school and was reday for lreaning to last day."

Jefferson wrote, "I playd crd gamms and it is fun and it is the best day at School!

Matthew wrote, "I was a littel nerves becaus it was the first day of scoole in then I was happy."

Milana wrote, "The Bes prote fo today wose lrning from my tehore and tale makes me smiol."

Everyone did a wonderful job!!!

It was time for P.E. everyone was excited!!! (that time went way to fast...I was trying to catch my breath!)

After specials we practiced where we would go when we were dismissed!  And then it was time to pack up for REAL and go home!!!

Behavior:

Each day each child starts on 5. If I have to remind them of something lots of times then they get a warning and moves to 4....At the end of the day whatever number they are on they get that many BUCKS...WOW bucks will be spent (or saved) on every other Friday on rewards such as shoes off, eat with a friend, sit with a friend at lunch, read to a kinder class, sit in the teacher's chair....Your child can also earn PUNCHES...for doing something "above and beyond".  So in your child's folder you may see 5 +2 that means no warnings and 2 punches.  You may also see 3+1 which would mean 2 warnings and 1 punch!  I am always looking for the positive in each child.  So no matter if they have warnings punches can be earned!!! 

I love my littles ALREADY!!!

Love,

Ms. Guy