Hey everyone! I hope your week/weekend went as awesome as mine did! My week was a complete whirlwind of events, but it was so much fun and the time flew by! Holy cow, I cannot believe I have already finished my very first week of 2nd grade as a teacher! :) It went absolutely amazing! I have no words to explain, but needless to say, I feel blessed, overly thankful, and truly appreciated after just the first week of teaching 2nd grade! I'll give you a quick run down of the events that took place in my very first week of 2nd grade (with kiddos).
Wednesday, August 14 was the first day of school for all the kids at Clarksville Schools, including elementary, middle school, and high school. The kids came to school with huge smiles on their faces and you could just tell they were excited to be at school again! I started the morning off in my classroom with the students working on "All About Me" flags to help me learn more about them each individually as well as their peers getting to know each other. These flags were then posted on the "BRAVO!" board in my classroom (which is meant for displaying student work!) Check out the picture below :) They turned out cute!
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| Bravo! All About Me First Day Flags! |
At 9:00 AM, the entire elementary gathered on the front lawn for a flag ceremony. After the flag ceremony, we returned back to the classroom to learn about rules, sort/organize supplies, and also had a classroom tour. All of that took us up to lunchtime, and then we came back and did some more "get to know you" activities and what not! Pretty much the first day was a lot of talking for me and a lot of listening for the students ;)! However, they did fantastic with it and I was excited for the second day to come!
On Thursday, we started the morning off with introducing Daily Language Review, which the students will be doing every morning in order to get ready for the school day. Doing this helps them recognize that once they are in the classroom it is time to get to work, rather than sitting there chit-chatting with their friends :)! We then completed a "How Do You Like To Learn" activity, which helped me understand how the students like to learn whether it be hands-on, listening only, or both! This is a teacher thing ;)! We did a lot more on Thursday, but most of it was rules, getting to know you activities, and journal time.
On Friday, I decided to begin instruction for Reading because I could tell the kiddos were sick of rules/routines so I decided to dive into the Read to Self part of Daily 5. Daily 5 is a program that is based around reading. It hones in on five or six different areas and is promoted in the elementary classrooms because it is much more interactive and hands-on for the students...This is the reason I LOVE IT and I will use it in my classroom! The base of Daily 5 starts with Read to Self and the students learn how to build "Reading Stamina" aka...become better readers for longer amounts of time! It's a challenge to see how long the kids can build up their stamina....we started at 2 minutes and got up to 5 minutes! Woohoo! The students did amazing with this activity! Also with building stamina, we cover the student/teacher rules for the Read to Self workshop...so that when the Daily 5 routine begins, the students will know exactly how to act in this workshop! Check out the pictures below to understand more of what I am talking about!
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| Workshop 1 of Daily 5: Read to Self |
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| Read to Self I-Chart (includes student & teacher rules) |
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| BUILD THAT STAMINA! :) |
Also on Friday, we covered how to choose a "Good Fit" book. We talked about the "I PICK" strategy (see picture below) and we talked about how a book that one students chooses may not be the best choice for their best friend or another student in the classroom. Needless to say, this is a strategy to show the kids that it's important they find a "Good Fit" book, or their reading will not improve because they may be reading something too easy or too hard! See the picture below to understand a little bit better :)! P.S...that is a homemade poster! Yep, I'm all about saving money during my first year! :)
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| "I PICK" Good Fit Books! |
Friday concluded and I was worn out!!! Thank goodness the weekend was finally here! I was ready to relax and enjoy a couple days off, but I am now anxious to get back and see my kiddos again! I miss them :). Well, that was a very brief post about my first week of school, but if I told you everything that we did...I guarantee you wouldn't probably read it all! :)
Keep checking back for the latest updates happening in my 2nd grade classroom! Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, stay safe <3!
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