Week One is in the Books!

We had a fabulous first week of school.  I can't remember when I had such an easy opening week!  What a great group of 5 year olds I get to spend my days with!  I am so looking forward to seeing how far we go this year!  But of course we have to start at the very beginning once again and a couple of times this week I found myself wondering how and when I was going to get them to that point where the room runs like "clockwork"!  Baby steps, Baby steps, one step at a time! 

This week we started laying the foundation of our routine.  We practiced taking our Red Folders out of our backpacks and putting them in the red basket when we arrive in the morning.  We practiced how to hang up our backpacks from the bottom hooks up!  We practiced putting our lunchboxes by the door where we leave to go to the cafeteria.  We practiced putting things in and taking things out of our chairsacks.  We kept track of our pencils, crayons, scissors and remembered to put the cap back on our gluesticks.

We finally got to watch the morning news on Wednesday and learned about "technical problems" and how to roll with it on Monday and Tuesday.  We practiced sitting on the carpet and writing on the Activboard.  We listened to stories and practiced turning and talking to a partner.  We practiced writing our names in our spiral notebooks and on the Morning Message.  We traced, cut, and glued and then traced, cut and glued some more!

We even learned a "magic trick" to make the glue disappear from our hands without having to wash our hands every time we touch the glue.

We did the calendar and practiced the days of the week, learned our Chicken Soup with Rice poem for August and began exploring tens and ones as we began our count up to the 100th day of school.

We read books on the carpet and learned how to match the stickers on the backs of the books to the labels on the book tubs so we get the books put back in the right places.

We made our "big numbers" 1-5 and learned about making sets to match the numeral.  We learned the saying "dot, dot, not a lot" as I turned over the glue bottles to the children to use by themselves and crossed my fingers!

We explored two of our favorite math manipulatives; pattern blocks and teddy bear counters.

We reviewed shapes and colors as we began making the Brown Bear characters.  We met Pete the Cat and made our own books, Colorful Shoes, that we could take home and "READ" to our families!

Then we concentrated on the folk tale, The Gingerbread Man, and read different versions of the story.  We were able to talk about how the different versions were the same and discover how the stories were different.  Of course we had to make our own Gingerbead Man and "chase" him around the school. We looked for him in the cafeteria, the library and the clinic, but we were too late in each place.  He left us a note with a clue to where he was headed next. He was finally found in Mr. Dragon's office on Friday morning.

 We saw Mr. Dragon on the playground and asked him to be on the lookout for the Gingerbread Man!

 

No more running for this Gingerbread Man!

Ready to eat at Last!

We rested and had snack to recharge for the rest of the day!

 

We played on the playground and in the classroom, met new friends and reconnected with old friends from preschool!

 Taking a break and watching the cars go by!

 Mr. Dragon gets a little time on the swings and teaches us how to pump!

We learned about lining up and walking quietly through the halls of our new school.

 

We ate lunch in the cafeteria!

Choosing our lunch in the lunch line.

Putting in our PIN number at the register with a little help from Mrs. Grogan.

 Sitting at our lunch table and having lunch with our friends!

 We also were able to visit the Library, where we met Mrs. Graph, heard about the Library rules and got to check out Library Books.

 

All in all it was a GREAT WEEK!