I got to school pretty darn early--a) it was Day 1, and I wanted to be ready when my kiddos arrived, and b) let's be real, I wasn't sleeping anyways, with those first day butterflies, and it made more sense to be at school where I could be productive. I finished setting up the classroom, hung up and set out some things that I had crafted over the weekend, and enjoyed my coffee. And then the kiddos arrived...
To begin the day, everyone in the class drew a self-portrait for our first grade time capsule, a wonderful idea that I borrowed from Mrs. Carroll and her First Grade Parade--the first of many ideas I think I will be taking from her :) We then wrote a little bit about ourselves and sealed those suckers closed to be read on the last day of school in June. The kiddos were so precious when putting their "first days of school" into the time capsule--when the first student put theirs in the box I said something like "say, 'See you in June!'" and each one of them said that to their papers when putting them in an old show box that is our time capsule. One of my little girls even kissed hers goodbye! Reason #5032 why I already can't get enough of 'em!
Here is the template we used:
And then we said goodbye to them until June...
We had a Morning Meeting where we got to know everyone's name--for the shy kids who didn't speak up, I let them talk into my "microphone" (which happened to be an Expo marker this morning because it was the first cylinder-like object my eyes found when I discovered I had some camera-shy kiddos). Seriously, y'all, try this with a kid sometime--I swear their voices rose 10 decibels with an Expo marker held under their chin as the microphone that would make their voices louder. Priceless.
We read a couple of books, my two first-day favorites:
(Thank you to Mrs. Sue Hutchinson in JMU's College of Education for reading Julie Dannenberg's First Day Jitters to our ECED 372 class three years ago; it's been a staple in my library ever since, and has been the first book I've read to every practicum and student teaching class I was in...and now was the first book I read to my first class!)
While I was collecting some data on the kiddos, I asked them to write for me what they were most excited about in first grade, and to please draw me a picture. Selfishly, this was a personal fave:
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Melt.My.Heart. Does life get much better than this?
The day carried on with a tour of the cafeteria, some more get-to-know-you activities and routines, lunch, and Art. Honestly, lunch was kind of a disaster, as it was my first lunch at school (they don't exactly do a "mock lunch" during inservice week!), and the kids were a little bummed that we had indoor recess on the first day because of rain, but if that was the worst part of the day, I'll take it!
We finished the day with one more writing prompt of "tell me a little bit about yourself." Some of the kiddos produced some really impressive work, which is already displayed out in the hallway :)
Another thank you for this one, to my dear friend Miss Hazlegrove, who had similar posters hanging outside her classroom when I visited her 1st grade class last year. Laminated construction paper with "created by ______" makes it easy to tape student work up quickly, and you never have to worry about taking paint off the wall in the hall!
At 3:30, the bell rang, and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief that I did it--I not only got through the first day of school as a new teacher, but truly enjoyed it :) Turns out those "first day jitters" were for nothing!
After a day of horrible weather, I got home and put on my running shoes, and it was as if Mother Nature peeked into my life for a minute and said "Hey, Allie, since I forced your kiddos into indoor recess today, I'm going to give you an hour of perfect weather to go for a run." 65 degrees (shorts and a long sleeve tee, this runner's dream) and not a drizzle falling out of the sky for a half dozen miles of running = perfection.
Now I'm just rambling...here's to just as great of a second day as the first!
Love from Room 106,
Allie
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