Sept. 1

 Hello everyone and welcome to our class blog!

We had a wonderful first day of grade 1. When we walked into our classroom we all found our desks with our name on them. Our desks had a bin of Playdough on them! So, while we were getting settled, learning where to put our backpacks, putting on our indoor shoes, etc. we got to play with our Playdough at our desk. 

Once we were settled into our new desk we read a morning message together and had a sharing circle. Sharing circles help us get to know each other and talk about things that are happening in our classroom. For our first sharing circle we each told the class our favourite colour. We practiced the sharing circle rules: looking at and listening carefully to the speaker, waiting patiently for our turn, and a hand signal in case we are feeling shy and would like to "pass". When everyone had a chance to share, we filled in our classroom calendar for the day and added a star to our "Days of School" chart. We talked a bit about patience today because we have a big class and Ms. Byrne will need our help to make sure everyone is with the group, gets help when they need it, etc.

Next, we practiced lining up with our teams. Each of us has a coloured circle on our desk that tell us which team we are on: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. We lined up one team at a time and then headed to our coat room to get our outdoor things and have our first recess! We practiced coming back to the line when we hear Ms. Byrne's harmonica. Once we got back to our class we had snack time and watched a story on the SmartBoard. 

Then, we completed our very first journal entry! We each got our journal book and wrote "My name is _____." We talked about putting spaces between words, holding our pencil properly, and writing on the lines. Once we finished our journal entry we got to draw a picture to go with it. Then it was lunch time.

After lunch we got our book boxes and we each got to choose 10 books from our reading area to store in them! We brought our book boxes to our desk and had some time to look through our books before we headed to the gym. 

In gym we practiced our routine and then played some freeze tag. When we got back to our classroom we had 10 minutes of mindfulness time to calm ur bodies down and get our brains ready for our last few jobs of the day. 

We looked at a 100s chart in math and talked about how we are going to learn all about numbers up to 100 this year! We each got a blank 100s chart and wrote all the numbers we could remember to show Ms. Byrne which ones we need help with. By the time we finish it was time to head outside for our second recess. 

We were all pretty tired by the time we got back to class - grade 1 can be exhausting! Ms. Byrne gave us some time to have an extra snack and we got to draw a picture about our first day of grade 1 before we tidied up and got ready for home. 

Just a few quick reminders from our first day:

- Please remind us to let Ms. Byrne know before we leave at the end of the day! When we see our pick-up, we can raise our hand to let Ms. Byrne know, and then she will say goodbye to us as quickly as she can and send us off. It gets busy on the compound at the end of the day so we want to make sure everyone finds their correct pick-up person. 

- As we mentioned earlier, we have a big class this year and it can be hard to keep track of our things! Please label shoes, coats, etc. when possible. We had a pair of outdoor shoes go missing today - so if your child accidentally brought home a pair of shoes that isn't theirs please send them back tomorrow so they can be returned!

- Students are required to wear masks. Please send your child with at least 1 mask.

Thank you so much for your help today in getting everyone to the correct line-up. We had a great day!

-Ms. Byrne