We had a great first week!!!

     We had a really busy first week of school with a lot of focus on learning how to be learners. This takes time, teaching and practice - it does not happen overnight or by magic! We understand that these things are new for your children, and that they will make mistakes during the learning process. The great thing about mistakes is that they help us learn to change our behavior. We use these pictures to help remind us of the things we do to be a learner...listen, watch, voices quiet, body in control.

     Our first coping skill of the year was deep breathing. We practiced sniffing a flower and blowing out a candle slowly...deep breathing helps us slow down, get calm and think. 

We introduced the letter A and B, the color yellow,  and the numeral 1. 

We read books about our names and worked on writing our names. We made yellow school buses for our color word. 

We read several "NO, David" books and talked about what it means to be a peacemaker. 

 

We had many lessons and discussions about the green zone (from the Zones of Regulation curriculum). We learned that when we are calm and ready to listen and work we are in the green zone. Our bodies are in control and people feel comfortable around us. We added some photographs of examples to our Zones Board. 

A new classmate joined our classroom on Thursday, so now we are a group of nine boys! We used our "green zone" bins for the first time today!

Have a really wonderful long weekend. We will see the boys back next Tuesday - we will be reading "Pete the Cat" books all week! 

Reminder... Curriculum Night for parents is on Wednesday September 12 at 6:00 in our classroom. 

Welcome Back to School!

Our classroom is almost ready....here are some of our "green zone" tubs and our calendar. 

And our hallway words are waiting for all of you who are coming to Room 1!

I hope that many of you will be able to come and visit our classroom on Monday August 27 between 3:00 and 5:00. I am excited to meet all of you - we have a fun year planned!

PIRATES!!!

We had a great Pirate Day in Room 113!!! The kids wore headbands and eye patches, and many chose to get tattoos! We read and wrote about pirates all day, and also played some pirate games like walking the plank and gathering jewels with pirate hooks. We ended the day with a special ocean treat. 

It was a fantastic last full day as a class together. Tomorrow we will reflect on our year and look at our yearbooks. I would like to extend a very heartfelt thanks to all of you for your help and support this year. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with your children and see all of them grow so much - today was a wonderful celebration of friendships made and social skill growth. I will miss your children, but will hold them in my heart for years to come. I check my email throughout the summer, and would love to hear how they are doing. I will be at Walled Lake Elementary School in the fall, with a group of new kindergartners - an exciting adventure for us as we open two new classrooms there. I wish you all a wonderful summer!

Our Field Trip

We had a wonderful field trip to the Walled Lake Outdoor Education Center today! 

The weather was perfect and we had two wonderful science lessons about camouflage and about organic and inorganic materials. We worked with partners to camouflage some potato "animals" and hid them from each other.

We were able to look at and touch animal skins to see how the fur blends in with the environment. 

 We hiked in the woods to collect organic material (leaves, sticks, bark) and then rubbed them against a screen to create dirt. This was a very hands on activity for us!

We stopped by the garden to look for living creatures and saw some insects. 

We ended our morning by eating lunch together! It was a perfect day for all of us!

We are so appreciative of the WL Foundation for Excellence for granting us a mini-grant to help with the cost of this field trip. 

Dinosaurs and Field Day!

On Tuesday we used little dinosaurs and clay to create our own fossils and on Wednesday we designed dinosaurs using the letter D!

During group time we have been working really hard on developing conversational skills with friends by practicing asking and answering questions and by paying each other compliments. The kids really love this and are getting very good at it. You might try something like this at home during dinner time to provide more practice. 

The highlight of the week was Field Day - we had so much fun and participated in so many activities. I will let the pictures tell the story!

And of course, it wouldn't be field day without a refreshing treat at the end of the day!