We have had a fantastic first few days of school.  Much of our time has been spent establishing routines and getting a sense of the rhythm of our days.  Your children have been wonderful listeners as they have learned many new routines from what to do upon arrival in the morning, to how to flow through math stations, playground expectations, and the different structure of each special. There is a whole lot of new information.

After arrival and a short choice time, each day we come together for morning meeting.  We begin our meeting by sitting quietly for about 45 seconds.  This is followed by a greeting, for now done by passing a talking stick around the circle as we greet each other.  This helps us learn everyone's name and also gives good practice in greeting classmates in a way that makes everyone feel welcome and safe.  After the greeting we have a short group activity.  This will take many forms throughout the year, but this week we have been doing "Pop See Ko".  Ask your child to demonstrate this for you!
After the activity we read the morning message which gives a sense of the schedule for the day and also helps to develop literacy skills.  This week we have been searching for specific letters and numbers in the message.  Soon we will add a sharing component to the meeting, but for now we are sharing artifact bags a bit later in the morning.

I will continue to give you details about each part of our day and will include pictures, which make the posts far more interesting.  (I can't post kid's pictures without consent forms- thank you if you've already sent this in- I appreciate that there is a lot of paper work in the first week.)

Instead, here is a picture of one of the week's highlights, our caterpillars, which have grown and changed rapidly.  On Wednesday as I was reading a book about caterpillars a child glanced up at our butterfly house and noticed that one of them was transforming into a chrysalis.  We quietly gathered around and watched the process unfold.