Mrs. Nordman ~ 1st Grade: Our First Week!

Jacob making his school bus schedules reminder.

We all made it! It was a LONG week for all of us, but we filled our days with crafts, great stories, familiar silly songs, learning routines and learning about each other. Here's a recap of each of our days:

Monday: We drew self portraits, practiced writing, and started sharing our ME bags to learn about each other. We read "The Night Before First Grade" and journaled what each of us did to get ready for school again. We put supplies away, learned where things are located in our room and learned recess rules. It's a BUSY place outside with so many kids on the playground at once… much different than kindergarten! Lunch was the highlight of the day. We had a special lunch orientation with Mrs. Perri. We ended the day with a fun all-school assembly, where the focus was learning about our all-school HOOT program. I'll talk about this at Parent Night next week.

Tuesday: We continued ME bags, began doing surveys (These are so fun!), and declared it our OWL day. We completed our OWL Rules book, made an OWL craft for our helper tree and read some interesting facts about OWLS. We began learning about emergency procedures, and it was also our first Gym and Music day. The 1-3 kids got an excellent report from both teachers!

Wednesday: Wednesday was all about Character Counts. We learned about the 6 pillars: Caring, Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Citizenship and Fairness. We watched a movie all about character with some of OUR favorite characters, like Mrs. Frizzle from The Magic Schoolbus. Then we had our first Art day with Mr. de Marco!

Thursday: We continued talking about character with the "Super Hero" idea in mind! We have a really cute craft and writing project hanging in the hall waiting for you to see on Parent Night. We had a great afternoon learning from Pete the Cat and his Rockin New School Shoes! He took us on a Scavenger Hunt around the school. We learned about using our "Quick Words" reference book for writing when we sequenced the story "Pete the Cat I Love my White Shoes." We ended the day doing a mystery sort of our own shoes.

Friday: Today we finished our Super Heroes of Character writing and craft and had our first math day! We made "secret folders" which we will use for all our testing situations. We practiced number and math things on white boards, and ended the day with Gym and Music again.

Are you tired reading about our week? I'm glad the children get a long fun weekend with you, but I will be very anxious to see them again on Tuesday. For now, enjoy some pictures from our first week!