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The Brown Bag Teacher

Teach the Children. Love the Children. Change the World.

Our First Days in 1st Grade

Happy, happy evening, friends! Today marked Day 5 of my life in 1st grade, and it is rather wonderful. In fact, my heart is so full. I’m happy and relieved and in love. I have 23 friends who are so loving and kind and talkative and silly and joyful. Learning is exciting and there is an underlying urgency to be growing as readers, writers, and leaders. Last year in 5th grade, my ‘word’ for the year was ‘endurance’. This year, my word is ‘refresh.’ This year is a great perspective in team work, positivity, common goal setting, and united school vision. My first week has been wonderful, and I’m so excited to share with you our first 2 days together. 🙂

Arriving on the First Day

Over the course of a half-hour my sweet friends arrived at school with their parents, grandparents, and siblings! We greeted one another, stored our supplies, confirmed afternoon transportation, and began our adventures. Only 2 of my friends had a hard time saying ‘goodbye’ and within 10 minutes of families leaving, we were all ready to learn!

All About the Procedures

When we explicitly teach students how we do things — how to walk in the hall, how to ask to use the restroom, how to transition between carpet and desk — we remove the guesswork and give kids the confidence to focus on what really matters: learning. This age group thrives on predictability, and procedures create that predictable rhythm. It might feel slow at first….repeating, modeling, practicing, and resetting again but this is how we go slow to go fast. Clear procedures set the tone for respect, responsibility, and independence. They’re not about control; they’re about freedom: the kind of freedom that comes when every student knows what to do and how to do it well.
Sixty-five percent of our first day was spent practicing how to be a kind friend, an excellent student, and an outstanding leader.
Lining up consumed most of our day – lining up to practice going to lunch, practicing for practicing to go to lunch, practicing for practicing to use the restroom, going to specials, practicing for dismissal, sitting on the carpet, sitting in our BIG chairs, finding our mailboxes, hanging our backpacks in our cubbies, making a lunch choice…..
Do you see our imaginary lunch trays?!?
Acting as our first assessment/baseline of the year, we did Race to 120. It was really interesting to watch my friends tackle the 120 chart. Who never got started? Who reversed every number? Who put forth amazing effort? Plus, the chart is a great piece of data to add to our data binders. I’m excited to see my friends’ growth in math!
Ultimately it was a wonderful, wonderful day. It was joyful and exciting and thrilling and so refreshing. At the end of the day, we brainstormed everything we accomplished in our first day. I wanted to make sure my friends left school being able to tell their families at least 1 thing that they did during the day.

After brainstorming, we wrote sentences about our favorite parts of the day and illustrated our ideas. This sweet friend loved writing! #agirlaftermyownheart

We started preparing to go home at 1:30 (school dismisses at 3:15), so that was our first day friends. Remember, the most important part of the first day of school is getting the kids home safely! 😉
Our second day was very, very similar to the first. We spent most of our time together practicing. We did have a chance to slip in a few special community-building moments.
Most importantly, I introduced our class sunflower. We transformed into scientists and observed him. We used our eyes to chart what we see, our fingers to chart what we felt, and our noses to chart what we smelled. It was so fun to see the kids’ faces. It was glorious. I had them in the palm of my hand, and I’m positive every friend will apply to fulfill the job of class gardener.

After exploring the sunflower, we took time naming him. After every student shared an idea, we went back to our tables and narrowed our choices down to six (one per table..although two tables did choose the same name). This is the first time I introduced a Kagan structure – round table. After each table synergized, we came back together as a class to create a class bar graph. Our five name-choices were – Sunny, Fuzzy, Mr. Sunflower, Snowflake, and Trevor.

Initially, Sunny and Fuzzy were tied. Once we eliminated all the different choices and we took a re-vote, Fuzzy was victorious. So, friends, I introduce you to Fuzzy!

After building our reading stamina, we introduced some of our math ‘learning tools’ and practiced representing numbers in different ways. What does 5 look like? Well, it can look like 2 greens, 3 red; 1 red, 4 greens; a single line of cubes; etc. The goal was not to find the ‘right’ answer, but reinforce the idea that there are many ways to find an answer. I attended a fabulous math training this summer and am really looking forward to integrating this idea throughout the year!

To close out our day, we read the classic – If You Take a Mouse to School… So many of my friends had read the original Numeroff book, so we were able to make some great text-to-text connections!

My outside bulletin board has this teaser on it, so I was waiting for my friends to share their ideas! Our focus this year is “A Love for Reading” so we spent much of our first days together practicing, talking about, and planning for our reading!

As a class, we brainstormed what what might happen if you give a 1st grader a book. Then, using the lined cards pictured above my friends wrote their sentences. Using pictures I’ve taken of them reading over the past few days, I added their responses and pictures to the bulletin board. I put them up during planning, so it was a great surprise yesterday as they returned. 1st graders LOVE to see pictures of themselves. 🙂 My favorite responses? If you give a first grade a book, they will…. buy it on the iPad, want a snack, read it in their head, take it to bed. Simple, fun, and an interesting first writing sample. 😉
Well, this was our first 2 days as 1st grade friends. We had such a sweet time, and these days left me so encouraged. I can do this, and I will love doing this. One of my teaching partners asked me yesterday how I was liking 1st grade coming from 5th – my response, “I’m so glad to be here. It’s joyful.” And friends, it’s true. I am so excited. My mind is working overtime, and I’m ecstatic at the possibilities this year, these students, and this school offer. It’s refreshing, and I’m grateful.
I wish you the best this school year. If you’re just heading back, go forth with joy. If you’re already back in the classroom, bless you! May we have a wonderful week of teaching and learning. 🙂

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tory says

    I AM OBSESSED WITH THE BULLETIN BOARD. Pure genius. What font did you use for the words??

  2. Maria Petersen says

    Thank you for your inspiration! I was recently placed in 1st and freaking out! Just like you I went from an upper grade down to 1st. LOL appreciate all the advice.

  4. Mary Carlson says

    This was so wonderful to read! I don't get kids until Sept. 2nd but your post got me excited to meet my new 2nd graders. I hope you have a fabulous year – you are off to a great start!

  8. MJ says

    What a wonderful thing to read this morning! I love how you call your kids your friends. Love that! I can just imagine how happy they are each time they hear you refer to them like that. Happy for you for a fresh, new, collaborative, happy year! Thank goodness that it seems bad years are always followed by really good ones that restore our love for teaching. Have a wonderful year!!! 🙂

  9. Kelly Anne says

    Yay!!! I agree with Molly- reading your post made me so happy! What an amazing first week and a very lucky group of firsties! Thank you for your inspiration 🙂 Have a wonderful second week!!

    XO, Kelly Anne
    AppleSlices

  12. Caitlyn Delaney says

    Oh my gosh I want to be in your class! Your kiddos look like so much fun! I love your moment of panic, as a fourth grade teacher, I'd be panicking too!! You're clearly going to be an amazing first grade teacher! Have so much fun with the little ones!

    -Caitlyn
    Fourth Grade Lemonade

  13. Jessica Lawler says

    Sounds like you're having a wonderful time, dear friend! Your little kiddos are lucky to have you – and so are your new teaching teammates!
    I laughed right out loud when I saw the name suggestion "Trevor" 🙂
    Enjoy this week – and take a nap…you deserve it!

    ~Jessica
    Joy in the Journey

  14. D. Frideley says

    1st Grade is the ONLY elementary grade I haven't taught. I'm not positive I could handle the responsibility of teaching kiddos to read. I did jump from 5th to PK-4. It was a huge shock to my system, but I loved that year.

    I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm highly impressed with your commitment to Daily 5. I would love to read a post about implementing it.

    Deniece

  16. Molly Maloy says

    Yayy!!! Reading your post made me so happy! I am so glad to hear how much you are loving 1st grade and your new school!! I could literally hear your voice as I was reading this!! So funny! Hope you have a marvelous rest of the week with your sweet students!!