Library Grand Opening Celebration

We just keep celebrating here in first grade!!  This week we didn't have any birthdays but we did celebrate.  After Open House I covered all the shelves in the classroom library so you couldn't see the boxes of books.  On Friday after we went to Library for the first time, we came back and we had our very own library celebration.  We had a ribbon cutting ceremony, followed by juice and cookies, followed by reading in the library!  It was soooooooo much fun!  I think they would've read the books in the library FOREVER!!  That gives me goosebumps!

Lauran got to cut the ribbon

We were also able to finish our classroom promise at the end of last week.  We say this every morning to each other when we come down to the math area.  Here's how it goes: 

"When we care about each other and our classroom, we always tell the truth, we share what we have, we are bucket-fillers all the time.  We listen carefully, try our best, and have fun together.  We treat others the way we want to be treated and when someone asks us to stop, we stop.  This is who we are, even when no one is watching."  We made a plate to look like us and signed our names to make a collage around the promise.  I think it turned out GREAT!

What a Busy First Week of First Grade!

We had a very busy week!  I don't know about your little firstie, but I was exhausted on Friday.  I took a 3 hour nap BEFORE bedtime!  We sure did have a lot of fun though!  I am getting to know bits and pieces of each and every one of our new class members. 

Our first day was full of nerves and jitters for sure!  We enjoyed a story called First Day Jitters.  It's got a surprise ending...the whole time you're reading the story, you think a little girl named Sarah is not wanting to go to school because she's nervous...but it turns out to be the teacher!!  After this story, we enjoyed some Jitter Juice to help calm our "first day jitters".  We also enjoyed some trail mix that we made for ourselves that we took very seriously because it was a special recipe for first grade success!  Here's the recipe:

You Will Need:                    2 cups effort                        2 cups kindness
                  1 handful curiosity                 3 Tablespoons honesty
                  2 cups teamwork                  1 cup excitement to learn
                  1 handful fairness                  Sprinkle of pride in your work
We talked about about what all of these were and what they meant.  I brought in an ingredient for each of these and they put a little of each of these in a bag and enjoyed!

 I was also able to capture the classes first day pictures....just in case you forgot I got their First Day of First Grade picture!!  I got this idea from pinterest.  Yes, I will admit that I am a pinterest freak!  I love the ideas on there though.  Hopefully you do too!

We do A LOT of sharing circles in my class - one after each core subject workshop - so we get to learn about each other very quickly.  Bringing in their favorite books helps us get to know each other too and each others reading likes as well!!  Here are a few pictures of our favorite books.  We share a few each day.  I am very excited to see that I have a lot of these very same favorite books in our classroom library!  It's crazy to think that by the end of the year they will be reading their favorite books!!  I get goosebumps just thinking about it!

  

We also had birthday celebrations last week as well.  Not 1, but 2!!  Nothing like starting the year off with a bang!  Dominick and Hailey both turned 6 last week.  We were happy that we got to celebrate with them.  We hope that they have a very blessed year!

Whew....are you exhausted yet?  We did this plus much more!  We created a classroom promise that I will post a picture of next week.  We also learned all about how first grade works....even inside recess!  It has quite a few changes from kindergarten, but I think they will like it.  They all keep coming back!