First Week of School

The first week of school at Annandale Terrace Elementary school was exciting and full of learning opportunities. I was glad that I got to see Kindergarden, first, and fifth grade. Seeing a wide variety of grade levels has helped me learn how each of the child's needs differ when they enter the classroom. The two weeks in the lower grades will be spent on getting the children to learn daily routines and to help them get aquatinted with their classmates.

During the first day of Kindergarden my teacher was very creative, warm and welcoming to the students. As each student entered the classroom she greated them individually and then helped them find a place to sit. After getting all the children in the room and getting each one to put their stuff away she gathered them to the carpet. On the carpet the teacher read many books throughout the day and talked about feelings. After reading and talking about being worried the students each went back to their desk to draw a picture of a time when they were worried or scared and told to write a sentence about it. The teacher said that she was going to use this as an assessment tool to see how much knowledge the children had gained and retained from the previous year. Another fun activity that the teacher did involving the idea of sharing ideas and working together was with play-do. The teacher had each of the students get a piece of plain play-do and smush it up to discover the color that they had gotten. After, the students gathered on the carpet to read a story about the colored people and learned how its better when you work together. After the story the students all added their play-do together to create one colorful ball. At the end of the day each student was able to take home a little piece of another student. Throughout the day daily routines were introduced such as indoor recess, how to be quiet when the bell rings, the line up poem, how to sit on the carpet (criss cross applesauce), etc.

Kindergarden was another adventurous day that involved heavily going over routines and reading stories. The children did get to move around and play games throughout the day. The students also got a chance to practice drawing portraits of their fellow students. One exciting thing that the students enjoyed that day was unwrapping the crayons and getting to use them for the first time. This was a powerful lesson because it taught the children that the crayons are special and something that they should share and take care of at their tables.

Fifth grade was a completely different experience. The students knew how to line up, and walk down the halls quietly. The students started practicing math, drew self portraits with things about themselves on it, and had sorted the library books that were in the classroom. The students had lots of specials and not too much lesson time. The teacher did read many books and talked about the importance of thinking differently and how famous people thought differently. A neat slideshow presentation and video was shown to help inspire the students with their homework.