Day 2 and Currently

Day 2 was almost as fabulous as day 1 except...no special! I believe most teachers treasure that special time and when we don't have it, it makes the day longer. No worries though, I made it through :)

We added a lightening share today to our Morning Meeting. A lightening share is when you ask a question, and the kids answer it around the circle. Before we started, we reviewed procedures from yesterday, as well as the important parts of greeting someone.

Unfortunately, after that, I had to give an initial math assessment. This time, I am going through it step by step, showing them how to pull out the important information, and underline it so they know what the question is asking. We only got through about half of it before I had them stop. It felt like a really long test, and I didn't want to discourage them. We'll finish it on Tuesday.

Because they had been sitting for so long, I taught them how to Go Bananas! This is probably my favorite energizer EVER, and it's so fun to do.

I do the movements a tiny bit differently, and this video also shows the different versions that you can do. We did this a lot before NECAP testing last year :)

Then we did the posters that I saw on Confessions of a Teaching Junkie . Some of their answers were so cute! They all agreed that school was important for learning and the future, and a lot of them thought that our classroom should be quiet (we'll see how long THAT lasts!) A lot of them wanted a teacher who was fun, funny, and nice. One friend said supportive and challenging, which I found interesting. We also talked about how they could help others learn, and how they could help themselves learn. Listening, focusing and paying attention were major for those :)

I used that activity and their Hopes and Dreams from the day before to segue into our rules. I told them in order to get those things done, we need to have rules. I explained that they were going to create the rules, and I would write down whatever they said. I used sentence strips to write them down (a change from last year, when I used chart paper, but sentence strips work better).

They kept those rules coming! One friend told me that they have never had so many rules in their classroom before. When they had exhausted their brains, I had them do a fun activity while I cut the rules apart. They came up with over 50 of them!

They aren't in any specific colors, I just grabbed a stack of strips and kept writing!

After they finished their activity, I wrote three words on the board. Me, Others, School/Supplies. We then read through all of the rules and decided which category it best fit it.

When they had all been sorted, we talked about how we could come up with ONE rule for each category that would say the same as the others. I guided them a little on the wording, and we all gave a thumbs up if they agreed with that rule.

Thumbs up all around for the three rules, and I told them I wanted to add a special one...Keep Miss M happy and have fun learning! They all said that was important (and, if they do something that isn't covered, I can ask them if it makes me happy. No happy, no do!)

We finished the afternoon we did our Me Bags, sharing them and then doing a descriptive writing activity (which I grabbed as a Clutter-Free Classroom Freebie a couple weeks ago). They'll have to finish the writing for morning work on Tuesday because we ran out of time!

And the most important part of the day....what I wore :)  

Sweater & Skirt: Target
Shirt & Tank: Old Navy

FYI: The colors are off in the picture...they are brighter in real life


And, EVEN more important! September Currently came out while I was typing! So, if you made it this far ;) Here you go!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn