Monday, August 18, 2008

First Day of School










Wow! What a great day we had today. It all started with waving goodbye to Mom or Dad in the cafeteria. Even though we had a few tears from both students and parents, it quickly turned to smiles in the room.

We started the day with learning where to hang our backpacks and lunchboxes. We have a great closet outside our room where we keep our backpacks and we bring in our Home-School Connection Folders and lunchboxes into the room.

Next we had Reader's Workshop. We talked about and charted "What Reader's Do", then the students had the opportunity to "read" from baskets of books. Next we had Writer's Workshop. The students listened to the story Mrs. Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten. The boys and girls shared with the group things they did to get ready for today. After the class discussion the students returned to their tables to write about what they did to get ready for Kindergarten.


One of the rituals and routines the students learned about today was how to use the restroom in our room, where to wait if someone is in the restroom and how to clean their hands when they come out. Another ritual and routine was how to eat lunch in the cafeteria. The students know which table is ours. They know to stay in their seats at all times. If they need help they need to raise their hands. When lunch is over they are responsible for cleaning up all of their trash.

After lunch, we played on the playground. Some of the playground rules we would like you to review with your child are below.
No Kindergartener can play on the monkey bars.
Slide down the slide on your bottom.
Do not walk up the slide.
Swing on the swing on your bottom.
Do not stand in front of the swings while someone is on them.

After the playground, we had Math Workshop. The students had the chance to explore different manipulatives like pattern blocks, linking cubes, wooden blocks, attribute blocks, and building circles and squares.













The last part of our day was spent in the cafeteria watching a fabulous speaker share his travels around the world on a bicycle. The students enjoyed looking at pictures of his travels.

The last ritual and routine the students learned today was dismissal. The students learned to pack their backpacks up with their folder and lunchbox. Please make sure you check your child's folder nightly for important information. Don't forget to initial the date box after reading.

It was a busy first day. The students were very tired by the time they went home. We can't wait until tomorrow. We have a great bunch of students and love every minute with them.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful! Thank you so much for this blog. It makes us feel so much more "tuned in" to Emma's experience. She is so enthused about school -- we could not have imagined a better first two days. Thank you!

Keith & Shelley Fisher

Melanie Holtsman said...

Lexie's favorite part was listening to the stories and Chase's favorite part was playing with the math manipulatives. I loved reading about their whole day. :)

Anonymous said...

Thank You so much for having this blog spot...it is great to hear about how the days are going...Bryce is really learning new things...I have heard about all of the rules and he had a funny story about the tornado drill...look forward to reading the daily blogs and hearing wonderful stories!!!!

Jackie Williams said...

Thanks for the blog! I love this. It's great a lot of the teachers are doing this. We have heard all about how Kindergartners are not allowed to do the monkey bars (Alex did warn him guess he didn't believe him). BT is ready to start back on Monday. He was mad he couldn't go Friday. Can't wait for the next update!
Thanks, Jackie & Brandon Tyler (Or BT)