We have had a fabulous first week of school! Getting the year under way takes an enormous amount of patience and perseverance on the part of students, with lots of spent listening and learning new routines. Everything from walking in line to using classroom tools needs to be taught, modeled, and practiced, ensuring future success and independence. Your children have done a fantastic job!

A few of the things we have done this week include:

• began our days with a morning meeting, which so far includes calm breathing and a greeting
• explored materials we will use during math
• practiced writing our own names, learned our classmates names, and compared names of several students at a time, looking for things that were the same and things that were different
• practiced walking safely in a line in the hall as well as on the sidewalk for when we walk back from ECO
• learned about our system for rewarding expected behaviors with cards that are collected school wide, eventually earning a whole school celebration
• watched 2 caterpillars turn into chrysalises
• met our 3rd and 4th grade reading buddies
• spent lots of time playing in the classroom and out on the playground

It was a very full week!