What a wonderful start to the year! The first day was filled with excitement from students and teachers alike. Teachers anxiously awaited their students as they emptied the buses and filled out bus lines. It was wonderful to see fresh faces for the start of a new beginning!
Today we took time to get to know each other, organize, reflect, and explore the classroom library. This morning we shared a brief morning meeting in which students told us their names as well as something they did over the summer. Ms. Newman and I gave the kids a brief tour of the room to help them get familiar with their new environment. Organizing school supplies was one of our biggest undertakings today! Kids came with brand new supplies waiting to get used. \
After all this work, we took a break as a team to play "The Warm Wind Blows." All four classes from the Rainbow Trout team made their way to the blacktop to get to know a little about each other. In this game, teachers made statements such as "The warm wind blows for people who read a book this summer." If that statement was true for a student, he/she would walk to a different part of the circle. Following this activity, we cooled down in our classroom with freeze-pops! Yum!
Students took a break from their classrooms and headed to recess, lunch, and library. When they returned to the room students reflected on their first day of school in their first writing assignment, a prompt, which a few students volunteered to share in front of the whole class! Way to go, kiddos! It's always fun for us to hear the students' perspectives!
Our last, and final activity of the day (and my personal favorite) was the Book Frenzy. Each student held a bin of books from our classroom library on their desks in addition to a "Books to Read" sheet. For 1-2 minutes, students perused the books in their bin, wrote down titles they want to read, and also wrote down titles they would like to see in the classroom library. After the 1-2 minutes, the bins rotated and students got to look through a new bin. Some students have a list of over 40 books they want to read!
I will post pictures of the Warm Wind Blows and the Book Frenzy as soon as the Do Not Photograph list is sent out.
All in all, today was a successful first day! I think and hope the students feel the same!
Today we took time to get to know each other, organize, reflect, and explore the classroom library. This morning we shared a brief morning meeting in which students told us their names as well as something they did over the summer. Ms. Newman and I gave the kids a brief tour of the room to help them get familiar with their new environment. Organizing school supplies was one of our biggest undertakings today! Kids came with brand new supplies waiting to get used. \
After all this work, we took a break as a team to play "The Warm Wind Blows." All four classes from the Rainbow Trout team made their way to the blacktop to get to know a little about each other. In this game, teachers made statements such as "The warm wind blows for people who read a book this summer." If that statement was true for a student, he/she would walk to a different part of the circle. Following this activity, we cooled down in our classroom with freeze-pops! Yum!
Students took a break from their classrooms and headed to recess, lunch, and library. When they returned to the room students reflected on their first day of school in their first writing assignment, a prompt, which a few students volunteered to share in front of the whole class! Way to go, kiddos! It's always fun for us to hear the students' perspectives!
Our last, and final activity of the day (and my personal favorite) was the Book Frenzy. Each student held a bin of books from our classroom library on their desks in addition to a "Books to Read" sheet. For 1-2 minutes, students perused the books in their bin, wrote down titles they want to read, and also wrote down titles they would like to see in the classroom library. After the 1-2 minutes, the bins rotated and students got to look through a new bin. Some students have a list of over 40 books they want to read!
I will post pictures of the Warm Wind Blows and the Book Frenzy as soon as the Do Not Photograph list is sent out.
All in all, today was a successful first day! I think and hope the students feel the same!
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