Glitches

It has been a week or so since I've been able to post. I usually wait until the weekend, but our most recent power outages have messed up my computer at work. So, until my computer is back up and running, I will not be posting any blog entries. Check back in with me soon and I hope I'll have some fun updates for you. Thanks!

Meet the firsties!

 I've wanted to get this up for a while now, but I had to wait until everyone had returned their permission form. We took these photos on the first day of school. We have some seriously big dreamers in this class. I can't wait to see this group grow during the year and take those steps to making their dreams come true!

I believe we have created scientists!

Since school started almost two weeks ago (YIKES!), we have been working on learning how to become scientists. Our first unit is all about what scientists are, what they do, and what tools do they use to do it. So far we have explored the job of a scientist and looked at the tools scientists use. We know that a scientist will not always use the same tool. Some jobs required certain tools. Our scholastic reader for last week showed some specific tools that couldn't be replaced. For example, you couldn't use a regular camera to look into space, and you couldn't use a telescope to take pictures for observation up close.

The simplest, but most important tool a scientist uses is his/her body!We looked at our five senses last week and what each does to help us learn about science. To help us keep track of this information, we have filled up our science bulletin board with scientists!

We are currently working on using these new skills we have learned in an investigation. Keep looking in the coming weeks for sneak peeks. 

Just a bit of behavior management

We are officially done with our first full week of school! We still have some road bumps during the week, but overall, these first graders are really sliding into our routine. Everything is new and different, and it is hard to remember all the different rules and procedures we have to follow. I have faith that by Chistmas the end of September we will be running full steam ahead!

 We have really been focusing on some of the challenging behaviors that are occuring in our classroom. Behavior #1 for us to focus on has been our absolute love of blurting out and talking whenever we feel like it! We have been keeping track of some data on blurting at the carpet and it is astounding how many times it happens!

Last week we read and did an activity on a book called Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein.This story was really funny! It highlighted the behavior of interrupting when someone else is talking and how it can really ruin things. We were able to get into partners and discuss some behaviors that were interrupting chicken behaviors and which were respectful student behaviors. Then we got up and drew up some examples of both. Students did such a great job on this, but I forgot to take pictures. Ah man!

This week I was more prepared! I pulled out my new copy of My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook. I really liked this book too because it also talked about blurting out, but showed that sometimes our bodies can't help it! We read and discussed what solutions could help make this better. Afterwards, we created some int-erupter volcanos. This was a fun activity. I found the activity on Pinterest and headed over to Speech Room News's blog to check out the activity. Students make volcanos and on their lava pieces, they told me one strategy they could try to not blurt out and how it makes them feel when someone blurts out on them.

I had a wonderful captive audience. I think we are less erupting only when our eyes are glued to a story. 

Here we are making our wonderful interrupting volcanoes. I hope everyone got to see these creations when they came home last week. 

This book was a great help on our journey to being better listeners. I like that I can refer to our interrupting chicken and erupting volcanos when these behaviors do come up because students make truly memorable connections to books, and I hope that they use these connections to think about their choice. Be sure to check out all the photos for this lesson on our photos page. 

Ready or not, the first day is here!

Welcome students, parents, and families! We kicked off our first day of school on Wednesday. I anxiously arrived at school WAY too early to make sure everything was prepared and set up for my first day with this energetic group of new firsties! The first day is always tough. There is so much to do! We learn new rules, procedures, and have to get used to a new environment. We hit plenty of stumbles and road blocks this week, but we had fun doing it.

I'm happy to say that almost everyone got their paperwork turned in by the end of the week. Way to go parents! I am excited to be able to share our classroom with you like this, and I hope you enjoy what I share.

Mrs. Keefner was ready to go on the first day of school! 

(Thank you to Miss Nicholson for snapping this photo of me! She is our new 5th grade teacher!)

Spending some writing time writing about ourselves! We will display these along with our construction paper portraits. 

Not quite how first graders sit at the carpet, but we are working hard on it! Ask your child to show you proper carpet expectations, and I bet they can do it. 

 Students are practicing proper quiet time procedure. Day 1 wasn't great, but we made huge leaps forward on day 2 and 3! Way to go first graders!

And of course we have to take a minute or two to rest our brains from all that information. Our favorite way is taking a brain break on Go Noodle!

These kids sure do know how to bust a move!

Week 1 was full of procedures and rules. We read some great books to help us understand our interrupting behaviors and what it means to be a respectful student. We talked a lot about recess and playground procedures and of course read another book! Students wrote about themselves in a All About Me Flipbook as well as creating a time capsule to be opened at the end of first grade! We started learning how to be determined first graders. I can't wait for next week so we can get into our routine and begin the serious business of learning in first grade!

Here is to a great year families! (Check out more photos of the first week in the photos page!)

Classroom Reveal!

I should have gotten to reveal pictures up sooner, but this week has been so fast and crazy! This is what our classroom is looking like at the beginning of the year. Already things are being added. As you can see, there isn't much for table space! I'll talk about why this is in another blog post later on! It seems to be popular so far! Please go to the Photos page to the link to our Photobucket account for more classroom reveal pictures!