We had a great first week!

As it always does, the first week of school flew by. The children enjoyed catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. We jumped right in to our work, and began reading the novel "Sideways Stories From Wayside School". It is an excellent book for learning about character, setting, plot, and summarization. We worked with parts of speech; nouns, verbs, and adjectives. In math, we covered basic problem solving strategies and reviewed place value. Science safety rules and procedures were covered as well, and we began working on map skills by learning to read a coordinate grid.

Perhaps most importantly, we talked about setting goals for the year. Before beginning any endeavor, it is best not just to know what it is you want to achieve, but to make a plan to help you get there. I told the class that I have certain goals for myself for this school year centered on what I want all of my students to accomplish. I described some of the practices and procedures that I have put in place that will help me to reach those goals. After talking about the goals I have set for the class, and discussing what goals they might set for themselves, Friday morning each child selected a goal for reading/language arts and one for math that they will work on through the year. Additionally, they had to come up with an action step; something they will do to help them attain their goals. All of our class goals are prominently posted near the door. We will revisit these frequently and assess our progress towards these goals.

Below are some pictures of some of the things we worked on this week. I am excited by the energy and enthusiasm this group has for learning. It's going to be a great year.