The FIRST Day!!

We made it!!  What a wonderful first day of school.  It was almost a little too calm and organized.....kinda made me worry what tomorrow might be like!  You've all heard what they say about the "honeymoon period"!

We will begin each day with the Touch and Feel pool.  This is your basic plastic swimming pool filled with some sort of sensory exploration activity.  Today is was filled with shredded paper.  Now, we knew that this was going to be messy....but we highly underestimated the clean-up that would be necessary!  It was everywhere! 

We transitioned from the Touch and Feel to our Morning Circle.  There we all introduced ourselves and reviewed the schedule for the day.  We counted boys and girls, grown-ups and kids, and talked about whose names started with the same letters.  Everyone participated....and everyone learned at least one new friend's name!

Outside time was next....and it's always a big hit!  The kids needed to get their wiggles out and we were trying to beat the rain!  We enjoyed the playground by ourselves for a while, then our friends from the Weekday School joined us.  The kids were playing together like they had known each other for quite a while.  Up and down the slide, riding the bikes, making pretend ice cream, playing in the sandbox, and climbing the rock wall.....I could barely keep up!



We came inside and got ready for our language and learning circle.  Today our Transitions friends joined us!  We read Every One Has a Name by Richard Browner.  It's an old story about how each animal is different, so every one has a different name.  This fit well with our discussion about how each of us has a different name.  We want the children to be able to call each other by their names and, we certainly want them to be able to call their teachers by their names.  Names are so important....I REALLY don't want to be "Hey Teacher" all year and I'm sure you will get tired of hearing about "that boy"!!

Art was next on the schedule.  We took all the shredded paper and put it to good use!  (And made another big mess in the process!)  The kids each took their written names and filled in the letters with the paper.  It gave us a chance to review the letters of each child's name and talk about when you put those letters together....it spells their name!  It was a wonderful activity and the kids had a little more purpose with the paper!

Lunch went off without a hitch!  The kids were talking to each other, and asking and answering questions!  You could tell they were starting to get a little tired, because they were all starting to move a little slower!  They should sleep well tonight!  I know I will!


After lunch, Ms. Tiffany read us Clifford's First Day of School and we talked about all the things that Clifford did on his first day that we did too!  Clifford even made a mess on his first day....just like we did! In the story, the teacher said that Clifford was too little to come back to school, he had to wait until he got bigger.  But.....we will all be back for another great day tomorrow!

We ended our day with some of our favorite songs.  Music time always re-energizes everybody! 

I can't believe that we've already made it through the first day! AND we read TWO books!  This was  a great way to start off a wonderful year!  So much fun....and so much learning to do!!  Tomorrow the journey continues.....