Beginning of the Year!

Oh, dear friends, what a rush!  The past few weeks have been great and exhausting!  I started the school year with an apple unit because it's a lot of fun and eases the children into the first grade schedule.  Transitioning little ones from a kindergarten routine to the first grade routine can be tricky, but with lots of songs, movement breaks, and fun activities, they will make the transition a bit easier.  We read Gail Gibbons book Apples and had our own apple taste test.  We tasted Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, and McIntosh apples.  Then we created a bar graph and a pictograph to represent our favorite apples.  Granny Smith won!  I saw this as an opportunity to bring my fabulous purple crock pot into school!  My mother bought it for me a few years ago.   Mom is a great gift giver!

We made super easy apple sauce, yummy!

The classroom smelled delicious!  Suddenly, our first grade classroom was so cozy and smelled like autumn.  Just wonderful!  It was super easy.  Here's what we did:

washed and cored 1/2 peck of McIntosh apples,

1/2 cup of sugar,

eyeballed the cinnamon and nutmeg,

1 cup of water. 

We layered the ingredients; half the apples, half the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, then the rest of the apples, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Lastly, we poured in the water.  We cooked it on high in the crock pot for 5 hours.  We did not peel the apples which gave the apple sauce a lovely color.  So scrumptious and smelled heavenly!  

While we were getting settled in, we completed a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting first grade and kindergarten.  The children shared similarities and differences and I scribed.  Great way to start using terms like similar and compare.  Also, a great way to find out what concerns or anxieties children have so I can reassure them.  Mostly, I discovered the children were really excited about first grade!

I just love fall in New England; apples, foliage, pumpkins, brisk weather, the smell of sharpened pencils and a whole new class to get to know!  Hope your start is going well!
Be well!

Construction Kids Hard At Word

I am thrilled to be back to school with the kiddos!  We had a really busy, productive first day!  I am so excited to work with this bunch!  I wanted to show you the bulletin board outside my first grade classroom. 

I always start the year with the "first grade is very different than kindergarten" talk.  Our kindergarten has rest time, which is not continued in first grade.  I know from experience that the children complain about rest time in kindergarten, but will complain that they are tired and need a nap in first grade.  While we are talking about all the hard work we will do in first grade, I bring out a large gift wrapped box.  I tell the students that if they are going to be working hard, they will need a few things to get started.  Then I open the gift box and pass out yellow plastic hard hats that have "I'm An Official First Grader" stickers on them.

Then I remind the students that every hard worker needs a tool box.  Now this is very different from kindergarten because the students have community tools in kindergarten.  In first grade they have their own tools kept in their own toolboxes!  This is very exciting to them!  We begin the year with a pencil, eraser, and small pack of crayons.  As the year progresses they will receive a glue stick, scissors, highlighter, small pack of post-its, and a black sharpie.  Each tool is introduced in the gift box for a bit of added suspense!  I love first grade!

Alrighty, that is it for today!  I have to get to bed early to be ready to do it all over again!  Aren't we the luckiest bunch!
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