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Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The First Few Weeks of School

We have had some fun getting to know each other and the rules the past few weeks.  Here are some pictures of what has been going on in the classroom: 

Room 111 Are Bucket Fillers!


The entire first grade has read and discussed the book How Full Is Your Bucket? This book describes how we all have invisible buckets which are either filled by kind and helpful thoughts, actions and words or "dipped into" by unkind thoughts, words and actions.  Each child has his/her own bucket displayed on the wall.  When they are seen being kind and helpful to others or following the rules of the classroom, they put a coupon into their bucket.  

After the children earn 5 tickets, they receive a reward coupon.  You may have seen some of these coupons coming home.  Reward coupons include: lunch with the teacher; sitting in  Check out the books shown below!  The children beg to have them re-read to them over and over again!  Ask your child how (s)he is being a bucket filler at school.



Lately we have been receiving  for our buckets by remembering to do the following upon arrival to school each morning (without being reminded by the teacher).

                                        

This is what we have been doing over the first 2 weeks!

Morning Meeting:
During morning meeting we practice greeting each other; learn to listen when others are speaking and read the "Morning Message." 

Hope and Dreams:
We discussed and shared our Hopes and Dreams for our year in first grade -- you can see them posted on the wall when you come to Open House on Tuesday.

Rules:
After sharing our hope and dreams we discussed and made rules as a classroom that we thought would help us achieve our goals.  They are also posted on our wall.

Here we are acting out the Classroom Rules:








Here are photos of the children relaxing and getting to know each other with play dough on the first of school:






Here we are playing a math game called "Shake Those beans"










Here we are practicing our STmath passwords:











We read, discussed and made connections to the book Chrysanthemum:



We have practiced patterns, counting and adding with a daily calendar activity:


We discussed and wrote about how we can follow the classroom rules throughout the year:


We did a name activity with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom


We practiced and labeled what a good listener looks like:


We learned about "Good Telling" through the book A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue