F is for First Grade: First Week of School

We survived the first week of school! It was a long, exhausting week; but I just love my new firsties so far!

We started out the week with magic playdough. I found this idea on pinterest and it was a total keeper. Basically, you make playdough, roll it into balls, make an indention in the center, add a few drops of food coloring, then close the ball up. When the kids get the ball it looks just like white playdough. We read the poem together as a class then the kids started to squish the playdough. As soon as they start to play with it the food coloring starts to mix in and the playdough changes colors. You should have heard the squeals as the playdough changed colors. The kids LOVED it! They kept yelling things like "the playdough IS magic! It says first grade is going to be great!" so cute :)

We spent A LOT of time going over class rules and practicing routines. I found this cute idea on Fall into First's blog. We read the book David Goes to School then brainstormed some rules we felt were important for our class. The kids went back to their seat and made their own version of David and copied their rule on handwriting paper. I LOVE the way these turned out. I was so impressed with how well everyone followed directions and learned to use a tracer!

How cute is this?!? Gosh I love these kids!

We spent some time talking about ways to be a good friend, and everyone made a key listing one thing we can do to be good friends. I taught the kids what a play on words means and we created this "the key to being a good friend" poster. I hung this up to remind us ways to be good citizens in our classroom.

Another fun activity this week involved one of my favorite books for the start of the year, The Crayon Box that Talked. This book is so great for teaching the kids about how everyone is unique, and when we all work together we can do so much more than we can do alone. We made a circle map about ways to be a good helper, then the kids used their crayons to create a colorful "helping hand" for our display.

And finally, I saved the best for last. To help kids learn where all the important places are in the school, we read the book Corduroy. In the story, Corduroy loses one of his large white buttons and is searching for it. In the end, he never does find it, but a little girl decides to take him home and give him a new one. The kids and I decided to take a walk around our school to see if we could find the lost button for him. As we were walking we stopped to talk to some important people in the school such as the librarian, art teacher, nurse, etc. We kept our eyes open for the button, but alas, it could not be found. Upon returning to our classroom, who would have thought, the button was laying behind my desk on the floor! Everyone was so excited so we decided to write a letter to Corduroy (that everyone got to sign - names have been blurred out) and make a map for him so he could find his way to the classroom.