Day 1

I had a wonderful first day of school. The kids seemed really sweet and eager to please...(we'll see how long that lasts! :). We started our day off with a Morning Meeting. I greeted a friend, and then I asked them what they noticed. We emphasized that it was important to make eye contact, talk to the person, and ask how they are doing. After the greeting, I went right to the message. I am introducing the other components slowly, and keeping things simple for the time being.

 We then went over our signs for the bathroom (a 't' in sign language), a drink (a 'w' in sign language) and when they need a new pencil (hold up your old one!). We also talked about when a good time to do these things would be. Then they colored their name posters.

We also had a snowball fight! The kids wrote 3 clues about themselves on a circular piece of paper and then they crumpled it up.  When everyone was ready, we threw the papers into the middle of the circle. Then I picked name sticks to have the kids pick up a snowball and read the clues. The whole group got to guess whose snowball it was. Some of them they got right away. Some of them took awhile. But everyone had fun :)

They went to special, and when we came back, we worked on our spelling pretest (they need to know a certain number of words by the end of 4th grade). Lunch, Recess, etc.

Then the fun happened. We saved Fred ! Some groups did it really fast, some groups took a little longer. When I introduced it, I emphasized that they needed to work together to save Fred. 

Each group used their paper clips in a different way. One group turned them into tweezers, which I thought was really cool and creative.

After we saved Fred, I read Skippy Jon Jones: Class Action (There's a new one coming out in October called Cirque de Ole!!!). We talked about how having an imagination is important, as well as setting goals for ourselves. We segued into our Hopes and Dreams (which I totally forgot  to take a picture of...oops). I had them think of a goal that they wanted to work on for the school year. Then it was time to go home! The day flew by.


So I wore two outfits for the first day of school. We had an opening day barbeque at night, so I went home to complete some stuff and then changed into something more comfortable :)

Gray Sweater & Skirt: JC Penny
Teal Sweater: Maurices
Tank: Target
Shoes: DSW

T-Shirt & Tank: Target
Jeans: JC Penny
Shoes: Famous Footwear





One of the funny things: I was talking to my kids about the barbeque and I told them that I would be there, but I was going home to change. One of my girls, perfectly serious, looked up and said "But if you change, how will we recognize you?"  My response (and this is why I like working with older kids :) "You've been looking at my face all day and you don't think you'll recognize me?" Needless to say, they all recognized me :)

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn