Hello Parents!
As I reflect on our first week of school, I am pleased and impressed with how well the students are transitioning into a new grade and a new teacher! I will be providing you with a brief, daily email called “What Did You Do Today?” starting on Monday, September 14th. The purpose of this email is to share with you what your child has done in class that day. Most often, this question is posed to your child and the response is “nothing.” Well, I am here to tell you, 1st grade is bustling with activity and learning! This email will be the lengthiest one you receive from me since it contains what we did for this entire week. Again, a daily email highlighting the day’s learning will be sent starting next week. The focus of this week was learning classroom routines and building classroom community. It is important to structure their classroom so that they know what to expect—that’s reassuring to them. I guided them in creating our “Classroom Agreements” as well as our “Responsibilities.” We made a poster of the ideas children had for rules in our classroom. When children are involved in creating these guidelines they have a higher level of understanding, ownership and caring for them. They thought of many rules that fell into three broad areas: Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be Safe. We call these our "Classroom Agreements" and everyone traced, decorated, and cut out their hand to glue on the agreements poster! Students came together to discuss roles and responsibilities in the classroom. They came up with the types of student responsibilities the class should have to be effective. Some responsibilities agreed upon include: Gardener, Door Holder, Lunch Helpers, Clean – Up Crew, Board Eraser, Table Captains, Attendance Keeper, Mailbox Monitor, Chair Managers, Paper Passer, Paper Collector, Pencil Sharpener, Meteorologist, Calendar Keeper, Scheduler…I’m sure I’m omitting a few! We read First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg. It’s a story capturing first day of school fears from a teacher’s point of view. The author reveals a surprising ending showing that the reluctant character was the Teacher and not the students. I shared that this is how I felt the first day of school since I was new to the school, the faculty & staff, the parents, and the teachers. We then shared how we felt on the first day of school and how we feel now. Seat arrangements were fluid throughout this week while I got to know the children and the children got to know each other. The kids completed a fun “Get To Know You” activity. It required them to use a paper with pictures of fun activities and find someone who likes doing that activity. Students had to go around the room asking each other questions such as “Do you like to read?” “Do you like to go camping?” “Do you like to swim?” Seating arrangements will be more permanent in the future given what I learned about your child in the student information surveys and their interactions with one another in class. We also read A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue by Julia Cook. It is important that first grade students begin to see themselves as problem solvers and understand the difference between tattling and reporting. Basically, we stress that it is considered reporting if you or someone else is in danger. Tattling, on the other hand, does not address danger and instead occurs when you want to get someone in trouble or when the incident has nothing to do with you. Afterwards, we followed up with a drawing activity of what is a Tattle and what is Reporting. The students loved the book and really got the difference in these concepts! I intend to provide a series of engaging lessons while incorporating movement breaks (Brain Breaks is the phrase we will use) and being flexible to students’ needs to move and have unstructured play. I do not intend to spend longer than 15 minutes on any one thing, The goal is to have a basic structure to the day the children can follow. For instance, A typical class for us may be a 5 minute morning work, followed by a quick review, followed by a math game on the IPads, a 10 minute visually-engaging, kinetic activity, a short film clip…you get the idea. Next week will be a series of administering some baseline assessments so I have an idea of where your child is in terms of basic Math, Reading, and Writing skills. It was exactly a week ago last Friday that I entered Ray School and my classroom for the first time. To have been hired two days before the official start of school is nerve-racking but the Ray school faculty, staff, and parents welcomed me with open arms and have made the transition smoother than I ever imagined! I appreciate your patience and understanding as I set up systems to communicate with you all on daily basis. I will be in touch later this month with a Parent Volunteer Schedule based on feedback I got from the volunteer sheets I received. Your child will also be bringing a Take Home folder back and forth to school with pertinent information such as their behavior for the day, forms, homework, calendars, etc. Thank you for your support! Mrs. Woodbury
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Mrs. Woodbury's Firsties
Thanks for stopping by our blog. I will be posting weekly newsletters, pictures and important info here... so make sure you check us out every week. Archives
June 2017
Categories |