What a Fantastic First Week!

Our first week just flew by, and it was a good one!  During the first week we spend a lot of time getting to know each other, building our routines and work habits, and learning how to make our day flow!  Here's some pictures of our week!

This week we learned about 3 ways to read a book: read the pictures, read the words, or retell the story.     From there we build the good work habit of being focused on our reading independently.  This will then become one of our choices during our Daily 5 reading block as I meet with small groups and individuals.  The students learned how our library is organized and were able to pick out books that were just right for them based on interests and reading levels.  We call this "shopping for books."

On Friday the students learned about "Read to Someone."  This is always a favorite choice because reading with a buddy makes it all the more fun!

The students learned how our math rotations work.  Since we have a multi-age classroom, the first and second graders of course have different skills to learn. I manage this by having small groups rotate through 3 stations: meet the teacher, work on assignment, and a game/manipulative station.  This week the students learned a few math games, were able to build designs with different manipulatives, and practiced the assignment station while reviewing skills from the previous school year.

We read the book "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds.  I absolutely love this book and highly recommend you check it out!  We made our own dot gallery inspired by the book.  This class also insisted that we add gold frames to our dot art just like in the book!

All week long the students have been asking when the day will come when they get to decorate their writing binders.  I asked the kids to bring in pictures, stickers, etc. to make their writing binder an extra special place to hold their writing.  Friday was finally the day, and they sure were proud of their binders when they were done.  Throughout the week the students have learned to choose topics they are experts in... themselves!  We've brainstormed all sorts of topics from vacation memories to play dates with friends.  The students are working on picking out a topic, drawing a picture, and stretching out words for their stories.