Welcome Back!

Phew!!!  What a busy two day week this has been.  I had planned on having this post up on the night of our Open House, but time flew away from me this week...or so it seemed anyway.  The start of the school year is always busy busy!  However, I have to say it has been one of the best first weeks of school in my 8 year career.  My little group of firsties just melt my heart.  I adore this time of the year and I love getting to know my students.  The week was busy, but we managed to get some learning accomplished in the classroom.  Let me give you a breakdown of some of the things we did.

First things first, we established our class rules together.  I love doing this with the students.  I believe creating our classroom rules is a decision that everyone in my classroom needs to be a part of.  We read books, discuss appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, and then vote on the rules WE believe will help US to be PRODUCTIVE members of our class.  The book we read to help us in creating our school rules was David Goes to School  by David Shannon.

 

Boy how the kids just love David!  I do too!  I didn't get a chance to take a picture of our class anchor chart we made for this book.  I'll do my best to add it to this post by the end of the weekend.  :)

We then had a detailed conversation about the rules in our classroom.  This is what WE decided:

1.  DO YOUR BEST!

2.  Listen to the teacher the first time.

3.   It is never okay to be hurtful.

4.  It is always okay to be helpful.

I think the students did a great job of taking ownership in these rules and I know that they will help us to be productive members for our first grade classroom.

I'm going to end on this note.  We did so many other things this week, but I feel like this was the MOST important of them all.  Having a boundaries and knowing the expectations in first grade is the best way to get the year started on the right foot.  I'm going to leave you with a few pictures of our first grade classroom.  I promise to take better pictures of it in the weeks to come.  I only had my cellphone when I took these pictures and I may have forgotten to turn on some of the lights.  :-/  Enjoy!!!