First Week Done!

Phew! Thursday was the first day of school for us. I must admit, I have the BEST class!! I am so excited for this year!

We started off by putting TONS of school supplies away--I feel like I got way more stuff this year than last year! I thought I was doing fine with storage but now I need to find a place for 15 big boxes of Goldfish :)

I introduced some aspects of Whole Brain Teaching and so far it's going well (if you haven't checked it out, do so!)! The kids are responding well to the Class/Yes system and we are working on learning the Five Rules. Anyone have any tips for making this stick (other than repetition)? I currently have 28 kids (holy cow!) and I'm having them all sit on the carpet and follow my lead with the rules. After going through them once with them mirroring me, I play a little charades type game where I do the hand signals and see if anyone can tell me the rule that goes with it. I'm really trying to get all 28 kids to participate all the time, but it's difficult! We will keep practicing every day.

I need to take pictures of my classroom now that school has started. I ended up moving a bunch of things around a few days before school started (I got a bigger desk!) and it's working out great so far! I love my big guided reading table--I almost didn't have one because I convinced myself it was too big for my space, but I MADE space for it. So worth it!

The last two days were a blur, but I got all of my student photos done and measured their heights! Phew! We are going to hit it hard on Tuesday and begin core curriculum.

As a second year teacher, I'm seeing my class from last year around the school and it makes me a little sad. I'm not their teacher anymore. I had a few kids really disappointed I wasn't teaching the 1/2 split again because they wanted to stay with me a second year. I caught a few glances from across the playground and it makes me realize what teachers are always talking about when they mention the impact they have on students. I have a few kids that had a rough year and I'm glad that I could help them along the way. I'm really looking forward to having kids come back to say Hi as they grow up.