First Weeks & Rigor

Soo....Here are a few pictures from my first weeks of school. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

We started graphing this week. We graphed what our favorite color crayon was to begin our graphing unit.

Each week we learn a new letter with the help of a poem. We read the poem together and then we are letter detectives looking for the letter of the week. We highlight the letter together on the poem on chart paper and then I have the kids highlight the same letter on the same poem on a paper copy. This is a quick way for me to informally assess them to see if they can identify the letter we are focusing on.

I found this idea off of Pinterest. Kids draw with pencil their idea of what their first day of school was like. Then the kids watercolor over their pencil marks and I go in after it dries and draw over the pencil lines with permanent marker. They turned out really cute... here they are!

Don't you love this beautiful watercolor above?!?! :)

Here are the kids self portraits & name writing.

I thought it would be adorable if we attempt to draw our favorite kitty character from some of the books we've been reading. We chose either Skippy Jon Jones or Pete the Cat. Here's how they turned out.

Love the head attached to the legs!

Look at how many buttons Pete has on his coat! Oh, ya...and supposedly that's Pete with his kitty dad! :)

For every letter I introduce we also get to do an artsy project. We made the rainbow fish for the letter Ff. I had students color and had a shiny scale made from scrapbook paper to glue on.

I acquired this little baby with the other color posters from a retired teacher. Thank you much! We have done a new color each week and I was even ambitious enough to make my own play-dough to go with the red week. 

Sorry for the creepy picture. This is the beginning of my rigorous board. My mom and I have been talking about making a "rigorous" board that features all of our wonderful, quirky students doing what they do. The reason it is called a "rigorous" board is because this is a buzz word in education right now and this board is just to show what teachers really deal with on a day to day basis and how rigor, though excellent, can sometimes be something that will not be achieved some days...with some students. This is just a board of silliness that you just have to take lightly.

This is a little friend of mine who decided to bring a Costco sized bag of Lay's potato chips in his backpack...Mind you, this was the only thing in his backpack that day. Then he proceeded to open his backpack and the entire bag of potato chips exploded all over the floor. I told him that he had to pick up every piece so that we didn't end up with critters. I snapped this picture as he was placing potato chips in his sweatshirt pocket and hands to clean them up...so funny! 

A story that I heard from my mom is...a student had a frog backpack...you know the kind with the eyes and legs sticking out and the top and sides. She looked over and he had the entire frog backpack over his head and shoulders and was making croaking noises and rocking back and forth. Oh how I wish I had a picture because the picture in my mind just makes me giggle. So there you have it, the start of my year and the rigorous board full of silliness!

I have had a great time getting to know my students and parents. They have all been so great! My parents are so willing to help and provide for our classroom and my kids are so ready and willing to learn. I am so glad that I have such a small class because I can get to know all my kids really well. I am having fun learning how to meet their needs and it's challenging me to teach to their needs instead of by the book. 

Soon to come blog...my TPT items that are available for purchase or for free! I have been posting items on TPT for purchase and I will try updating my blog soon so that all can know what is available. I know you're super interested! :)