First Day!

What a great first day!  We had so much to cover and so much to talk about, and these kids did an amazing job! 

We began our day with an overview on how to feed each of the animals on the farm.  We talked about the importance of keeping grain dry, the differences in feeds, and learned how to care for each animal group.  Then, the class broke up into groups.  Each group was given a checklist, and we set out to work on tending to the animals!  I promised them that our mornings won't always take so long... there is just a lot to learn on the first day!

After animal time, we had a quick snack and they received their journals.  These are for the writing assignments that they will complete each week.  I assured them that the journal activities are meant to be fun, not stressful!  I've loved giving the class time to read and share their thoughts with their peers, and I look forward to unlocking a love (or at least a tolerance) for writing!

The class talked about different shapes today.  We drew some on the board and discussed the differences between squares, rectangles, and rhombuses.  The class then began creating and abstract farm scene using cutouts of different shapes.  A lot of times, students will react negatively to the idea of creating animals or scenes using unrealistic colors or (heaven forbid) creating them without a pencil or markers.  This class today did an amazing job!  There were some of the cutest sheep I have ever seen... made completely of circles!  

I explained to the class that I am constantly asked to recommend fun books for different age groups.  Parents are always looking for books that will spark an interest!  As they read for fun at home, they can complete a book summary/review card.  Each book "report" will go into our big class Book Recommendations Binder.  This will be kept at the little library here in the building, and the kids can look through it to find ideas on books they would like to read!  We decided that the first goal will be 25 completed cards among the entire class.  If we can read 25 cards, we will have a Book Party!  (I may regret the number 25.... they could surprise me and decide to fill them out sooner than expected.  But, it's a small price to pay to get kids reading!)  These reports are optional, and all I ask is that the students do their very best on these, which will be different for each child.  Parents, please help encourage quality effort in these.  Each card must be signed by a parent before its turned in.  If this is successful, I plan to keep it up throughout the year!

We began the book, "The Mystery of the Northern Lights" by Carole Marsh.  We will be reading (listening) some in class, and then the students will be asked to read a few chapters at home before the following class.  Parents can present this as a read-aloud or as independent reading.... either is fine!  For the older students, vocabulary assignments that correlate with the chapters have been sent home.  There is also a link to Quizlet activities that use the words in chapters 1-5.  We will discuss these words in class, but parents can use the vocabulary activities at home to work on dictionary and alphabetical order skills, if desired.


Our world geography class began with an overview on the globe and Earth.  We talked about spheres, axis, the equator, lines of latitude, lines of longitude, time zones, and more.  We used the large world map on the wall to point out these things, and used the globe to demonstrate and understand the reasons for the time zones.

Next, the class began creating their own globe.  Today, they created their newspaper base, held it tight with masking tape, and began to cover it in blue tissue paper.  We will continue to work on these next week!

Finally, the class was broken into different groups and each was given a variety of fruits and vegetables.  They worked as a group to come up with their own way to sort these things.  After each item had been sorted, the groups took turns sharing the reasoning behind their decisions to the rest of the class.  I explained that each of these groups used different characteristics to decide how to divide the foods.  This led us into our lesson on Carolus Linnaeus and the creation of the Taxonomy, or the Classification of Living Things.  The students decided that Linnaeus must have been a very organized person!  The class will be visiting a website and watching a video at home to learn more about the Classification of Living Things.  Next week, we will dive into the different kingdoms and seven different levels of organization.

This group really blew me away today!  It was a very packed day with lots and lots of first-day-discussions... and they handled it so well!  I let them know how proud I was of them all, and their patience and focus was rewarded with lots of sweet animal love!  I think we invented a new class: Piggie P.E.!  Ha!