The First Day of School!

After all of the preparation and planning,the day arrived and left very quickly!  I do have to say it was a pretty good day!  The kids came swarming in ready to go and were pretty quiet, which honestly surprised me!  :)
We went through many different expectations and behaviors for different locations in the building stressing the Marion Way:

The Marion Way is my way.

I am respectful, responsible, and honest.

Follow me.

Aside from learning rules and expectations (which will continue the rest of the week!), we had some fun too!  We read First Day Jitters, and shared our own feelings of nervousness, mine included!  The kids brought their Brown Bag Biographies.  Last night at open house I sent home a brown lunch sack and the children were to fill it with 2-3 items that would help us as a class, learn more about one another. So we took time to share those today and will continue tomorrow.  I saw many fun "things" in their bags and learned quite a bit about the students...everything from loving horses and going horseback riding to a pair of goggles to show they loved swimming, to a picture of the student with the President!  It was so fun to hear them share with their classmates!  

After specials, more rules/expectations, and recess and lunch, we read a book called Picture Perfect? written by a 2nd grade class in California about school picture day.  Every page in the book was of each student who created a self portrait.  So, after reading the book we discussed individuality and how no one's picture looked the same and then my class created their own self portraits!  Hopefully I will get them hung up for tomorrow!  I do believe I have some artists in my class.  

The rest of the afternoon was spent reviewing classroom procedures and rules, we read a poem called "The First Day".  We went back and forth from just me reading to echo reading to choral reading.  The poem focused on this idea of being scared about starting school, but at the end we reflected on our day and if their jitters from this morning (text to text connection to our first story we read today!) had changed and if they were nervous to come back tomorrow.  I am happy to report that everyone said they were excited to come back and not nervous at all so that is a definite plus and I am very anxious for them to return!  

As a reminder for parents who are following our blog, I have asked that your child bring in their favorite book tomorrow to share with the class.  They do not need to be able to read the book in its entirety, but they should be familiar enough with it to tell the class about the story and why it is their favorite! :)

Check back again tomorrow night!

Mrs. Clough