A Fantastic First

We had a fantastic first day in room 19, despite the miserably hot weather. This year our class consists of 29 students, 18 girls and 11 boys. That's a first; usually we have more boys in room 19.

We started out today with the students working on an interest inventory and a reading pretest. The inventory helps me to help the students pick books in the library as well as giving me a better sense of who they are as young people. The reading pretest lets me know who my strong readers are and who will need a little extra assistance.

I went over a lot of rules and procedures with the students. The rules are pretty basic:  follow directions, keep your hands and feet to yourself, etc. The students know these basic conduct norms already. The procedures are less intuitive, and I don't expect the students to master them right away. They learned how to enter and exit the room, how to line up after recess and lunch, where to get blank paper and where to place completed work.  We'll be working for the next two or three weeks at really mastering these because once procedures are automatic the management of the class become pretty painless for both teacher and children.

We worked in partners to introduce ourselves and to learn about each other. The students interviewed each other using some questions I gave them. They then turned the answers into a rough draft of a paragraph with topic and concluding sentences. I helped them edit the draft, and they made a final copy. That took us up to lunch.

After lunch, the students worked again with their partner, this time to draw portraits. Some of their work was really excellent!

We finished the day with a math pretest. This assesses what they will learn during the year. It's a hard test, and it does not count for their grade. Nevertheless it gives me a good idea of who will need more or less assistance in math this year.

Homework will be light at first and grow a little heavier as we start on regular academic work this week and next. 

Homework:   (1) Do "Addition, No Regrouping 1" worksheet. (2) Do the "Cursive Review 1" worksheet.