First Days of School

I seriously love my job!! Especially since my week is already over! ;) I got to meet some of the sweetest kiddos this week and we had a lot of fun getting to know each other!

Here are a couple of things that we started on this week...

Making Books

Definitely my favorite way to start writing. A blank stapled book.  I had books sitting at their seats when they came in and told them to write about something they did this summer. I learned lots about them as writers. The different responses to the task is always precious and the look in their eyes as their ideas start forming is WONDERFUL! I can't wait to jump into our writer's workshop next week. 

Who Am I as a Reader/Writer

I made these sheets specifically for the first days of school. It was a helpful way to get to the kiddos--their interests in reading, what they like to write, what kind of read alouds will hold their attention the best, what genres they know.

I had several of the following response...

It makes perfect sense! :)

Marshmallow Challenge

I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this, but was so glad I decided too! Any opportunity to see kids have to collaborate and work together is great! I did this last year, but waited until we had been in school a week or two. We had the best discussion afterwards about teamwork and I loved watching how hard the kids worked and that they persevered through the task!

They all agreed that the task was difficult, especially because they didn't always get to use their idea, they had to think about other people's ideas too. If you want more info about the marshmallow challenge go {here}.

iBooks

We call our interactive notebooks iBooks here. I told the kids they were getting iBooks and they got all excited...and then I told them to pull out the black notebook in their backpacks... ;) We got started on our Literature iBook as we started talking about characters. 

I really do like using them to help us keep up with our notes and learning! Tuesday we read a couple chapters of Because of Winn Dixie and then talked about the characters while we worked on the pages. On Wednesday we continued to talk about characters in our different read alouds and it was good to keep the connection going! I'm still in the process of finishing the first unit, but once it is done I will be adding it to my TPT store! :)

Read Alouds

Here's a peek at the read alouds we used this week to celebrate being Back and School and to brainstorm before writing our Essential Agreements. 

Always a fun one!

Just because they need to get to know my favorite author! ;)

I haven't used this book before, but it is a Beautiful story and the kids really thought through how we should treat others.

It's not back to school time unless we read this one! :)

Of course, back to school days would not be complete unless I find out what the kids want to learn about this year! :) It's a great way to get them used to my quick check/exit slip system too! :)

There's a snapshot of our back to school fun! Next week we dive deeper into characters and setting and we will get started with Writer's Workshop!

Hope your back to school was fabulous too!