It Has Begun!

That's right! School has begun! Since my last post I've spent a lot of time in my room. Not only do I feel better organized but the room has a good flow. It definitely underwent a lot of changes. (How did I think I'd have my engineer friend over and NOT come out with a ton of changes?)

Notice the name change! I found out there was another first grade blog with the same name and it was getting much more attention! I don't want my students wonderful work and ideas to get looked over. So, after some thinking I decided to simply change the a to my and viola! Now our blog is free to be ours :)

The other big change this year was the movement of my calendar. I stepped outside the box, the box of a bulletin board that is. This year we will be having calendar on the wall. That's right, the wall! Today we tried it out and it worked exactly the same. Imagine that! :)

Calendar

 Another major change that happened affected the entire school. We welcomed Dr. Morton! She is an amazing ball of energy that has already brought energy, focus, and unity to our school. Her theme for the school year is Choosing Excellence: Unleash Your Superhero Powers. This works perfectly with the direction I wanted to take our room. I am really focusing on the positive this year. We are going to learn to build ourselves up and how to build others up as well. We are going to learn how to be the best versions of ourselves.

Classroom decorations

Another major changed involved how I prepare what I am going to teach. I am a big believer on not having a ton of information up until I've actually covered it with the students. The only materials I have up year round are our alphabet, numbers, and different sound posters which cover multiple sounds. This means I usually start my year with empty bulletin boards. Not this year, however! I've gone ahead and put up the concepts we will be covering (at least in the beginning). I've got them flipped over so the kids can't see it yet. As we discuss the different items I'll flip them over. The white acts as a reminder until I've covered it. Now I know I'll cover all of our problem solving strategies and math strategies. I have a daily reminder.

Our Problem Solving Board

The Beginning of Our Math Board!

 While a ton seems to be changing there are a lot things that haven't. Our room is still Owl themed. We are still by the library. We will still be sitting in groups. We will be learning lots and having fun.

I can't wait to see what this year brings. Today was a great beginning and we definitely learned a lot about each other. Starting tomorrow we will be as close to our normal schedule as possible. (It's helpful to keep students on a schedule, even at the beginning of the year. We may not be doing our normal activities but our subject times will stay the same.) This means that tomorrow we will be blogging as a class! I imagine this will take some getting used to but it promises to be a load of fun!

Here's to routines, practice, and learning.

P.S
Teachers: What are your must do's on the first day of school?
Parents: Do you do anything to commemorate the first day?