" I love coming to class because we do fun things!"

One of my students said that!

Getting new students is so hard. Today I missed an opportunity to connect with one of mine. He was in the room before school which we aren't supposed to do but I was letting him put his stuff away. Then I told him to go out and play which I wish I hadn't done. Who, exactly, was he going to go out and play with? I should have just let him stay and chatted with him for the few minutes before school started. But, I was in a bad mood and wanted the time to myself. Selfish me. I need to remember how much my attitude impacts the outcome of the day.

Shaky morning, but I did a really successful activity in reading today. We have been practicing the ck sound and I wanted to do the -ack word family (back, stack, whack, etc). So I wrote a bunch of the words on note cards and put them up all around the room. Then the kids took white boards and went on a scavenger hunt to find as many as they could. When they thought they had found them all, they sat at their desks and underlined the -ack in each word and practiced reading them. Then as a whole class we made a big list. It was fantastic. The kids were on task, they got some hands on practice instead of me just direct instructing, and they found lots of ck/-ack during silent reading that they were excited to show me and read!

Successful math lesson as well about taking a survey. I used our rug with the colored squares to make a "bar graph." The students sat in a row based on what mode of transportation they liked the best and then we counted how many students were in each row. It was cool.

I wasn't going to blog about this yesterday, but since I am getting another new student tomorrow I think it is fair. I now have the largest first grade class. I came to Balsz so that there wouldn't be large first grade classes and there aren't for the other teachers, just me. I have gotten a new student a day, four days in a row. Suspicious? I think so. Frustrating? I know so.

Love,
Miss Bee