Okay, so school actually started yesterday, but there is this wonderful rule saying teachers should never smile for the first half of the school year, so nothing funny really happened. Honestly, that is so untrue, I smile all the time, and it is ridiculously hard for me not to smile. With yesterday being the first day, I came home exhausted, and my throat hurt from all the talking I did when teaching. Pathetic, I know.
I'm testing out a few new ideas for school this year. We are continuing to do word study for our spelling program, and I'm introducing online classrooms and writer's workshop this year. A small change I made this year was to take our daily question for reading and turning it into a small journal to encourage all the students to share their answer. I had 100% participation today and none of the children said they needed more time.
Today's questions was "How would you improve a vacant lot?" Vacant is one of our vocabulary words. I was so happy when a couple of the students answered by saying, "They would spruce up a vacant lot...". Sprucing is another one of our vocabulary words. Teachers get excited over small things like that, I guess. Many of the children answered that they would improve the vacant lot to help animals. Building an SPCA, animal shelter, and animal preserve were just a few of the answers. When all students had a turn, I said "I can tell you all really love animals." Rose, one of my biggest animal fans, says in response, "I would own all the animals that needed a home, but that would make me a hoarder." This made me laugh because I once tried to watch the show Hoarders, I couldn't watch anymore after the third episode.
We are off to a wonderful start for this school year! The children are behaving beautifully and are excited to be in school. I think will have an awesome year together.
