To begin the day, we had Independent Reading Time and Morning Meeting again. After that, we had our first birthday celebration of the year - mine! For birthdays, we sing happy birthday to the birthday person while playing fun instruments. Often a child will have a special adult come in to read one of their favorite books to the class to celebrate as well. Snacks are always welcome, of course, but, for obvious reasons, we hold off on them until the end of the day. You're welcome... :-)
we read a book - an old favorite - Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See? After that, each child got a page that had a space to fill in the blank for their name and a friend's name (____, ____, what do you see? I see ______ looking at me.) I had them each with a different friend so that we can bind the pages for our first class book, and it will flow like the original book. It should be a fun addition to our classroom library.
After Reading, we had our First Writer's Workshop of the year. We follow the Units of Study curriculum, which is very engaging and exciting for all of us. The kids all wrote for about 20 minutes (straight!!) and then had a chance to share their stories at the end of workshop.
After writing, it was off to the lunchroom for lunch, and then out for recess. When we got back up to the room, we had Read Aloud - we read Nate the Great and the Missing Key. Then it was off to the Media Center for class with Mrs. Hennen. The kids also had book check-out today with her - look for their books in their backpacks!
When we got back to our room, we had Math Workshop. Today we worked on number books, which is a simple assessment for me to see the skills that the kids have with numbers. Also during math workshop, we really focused on positive talk during wrk time, and acknowledged the helpful, kind, and just generally nice comments that they all had for each other as they were working.
At the end of the day we had free choice time, in which we practiced kind and helpful comments and behaviors, to reinforce the lesson from math workshop. They all did great -- there are some really, really nice friendships forming already - be sure to ask your child about them!
After we cleaned up from Choice Time, we had the birthday snack - delicious apples (just for reference, the snacks need to be store-bought and individually wrapped. As were eating, we got all of our things, packed up, and headed out.
