Thursday, August 29, 2013

FIRST DAY! In a Word... Spectacular!

Greetings and welcome second grade friends... and families!! What a great first day it was! After settling in and learning how to check in for lunch we had a very exciting morning meeting! It started with the "Earth" greeting! After friends were all greeted (with care and kindness... eye to eye) we played a new game called Ms. Marbles! Try asking about where Ms. Marbles is.... without showing any of your teeth! Not impossible... but quite hilarious! One after another, friends kept asking about Ms. Marbles! We also sang This Old Man, and shared today's morning message! Morning meeting is a very important ritual and a wonderful way to start the day together. Every morning meeting starts with songs, followed by the day's message, a greeting, and a game! After a brief math meeting (calendar math, "days in school") we learned all about how to play and care for our number cards! Today's game was "Tens Go Fish"! Students talked about how good friends play games together and practiced addition combinations to 10! Several strategies were used (finger counting, counting "up", memory) to find 2 addends equal to 10! Great way to review our math facts as well as cooperative learning in math! And that's just the way we like it! "Lining up" is something we do a lot in school, so we practiced this too... the 2W way! Walking through the hallways quietly (in ways that show we care about our school) is important! And that's just the way it went today! Very impressive friends! We also learned two very big and important words today too (and on our first day)!!!! Being independent and responsible are very important when your a second grader! We will learn all about how to take care of ourselves, our classroom, our learning, and each other this year, and these two words are very meaningful in second grade (apologizing out loud and, feeling most embarrassed for the spelling error)! In writing workshop we learned how to use and care for pencils the second grade way! Pencils are one of the most important tools we use, and we used them to write and draw about ourselves today! We discovered we have a lot of writers in second grade! Friends who can "persevere" in writing and add to words and pictures in a piece of writing... very exciting! We will talk a lot about writing this year, and what good writers do when sharing their stories with the world! (EXCITING!!!!) Our first day was a lot about "housekeeping", and learning how to put notes from home in Ms. W's basket was another important way we learned responsibility and independence! Learning how to pack-up at the end of the day with our home-school folders was another way we practiced being responsible and independent! Taking care to make sure we have everything we need when we end our day is very important! So, all in all, I must say today "flew" by and it was pretty spectacular! Students got to meet all their new teachers... Ms. W., Mrs. Cialek, and Mrs. Carey (our intern from Mt. Holyoke College who will join us all year), learn routines, and how to care for our classroom and our friends! Thank you for preparing your students for all the wonderful learning we do in our classroom! Today was the first of many spectacular days, to be sure!!

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