And . . . We're Off! What a great first day of school. It was so much fun getting to know the new 1st graders and seeing how much the 2nd graders have grown. We had our first Morning Meeting (as a class). This is something that we will do everyday and is the backbone to developing and inclusive, communicative, and empathetic classroom. The activity during today's meeting was the singing of Aiken Drum. The silly sing-a-long is a Scottish folk song, also known as a nursery rhyme, about a man whose body and clothing are made of different foods, and who plays a ladle. The song, with its simple, repetitive structure, is excellent for children and can be adapted by singers to invent new food-based versions of the character.
We also introduced two tools that we will use a lot this year; crayons and pencils. The students practiced their pencil grip, modeled how to take care of the tools and created a piece about their favorite activity from this summer. Between the camping, swimming, traveling, and sprouting events, the class surely seemed to have a very exciting summer break.
Today's special was PE. The students worked with Ms. Zaino about what PE class is and set some expectations as a group. They then had a chance to move their bodies and get some energy out. Please remember to have kids wear sneakers on PE days.
We had an unexpected fire drill (accidentally pulled in another classroom) this afternoon. The kids did a great job of handling the practice and we were even able to count this as our August practice.
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