Gold Medal First Day

The first day of our combo class was GOLDEN!  What a terrific group of enthusiastic learners!  I am so excited to be teaching these 16 amazing children. We were busy, busy, busy this week!  For our first day, did several activities to learn each others' names.  One activity was a response chant using the "Knock, Knock" joke pattern.

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Courtney

Courtney, who?

Courtney Niemeyer

Good morning, Courtney Niemeyer!

Each child introduced themselves and was greeted by the class.  We also made a book of the "Knock, Knock" greeting.  All the students made a beautiful name page to add to the book.

We read a funny book called First Day Jitters! I think it helped ease some of our own first day jitters. There is quite a twist at the end of the book. Ask your child if they remember what it was. After lunch, the students were introduced to one of my absolute favorite apps. Reading Rainbow! The app is filled with incredible fiction and nonfiction books that are read aloud to the children by terrific, fluent readers. There is also an amazing library of videos that build background knowledge and take the children on interesting virtual field trips. The kids are so engaged in reading anytime they are logged in. Their eyes light up as they "turn" through the pages of the digital books. You can hear giggles as students listen to funny stories and "WOW"s when the students see and hear something interesting.

You can get a Reading Rainbow subscription at home for $4.99 per month. Visit their website for more information: https://www.readingrainbow.com/. Just last year, the app launched the education version of the app. Our teaching team has used some of the money raised from last year's Read-A-Thon to purchase a subscription. You may access our class account from home. How exciting is that! On any web browsing device, go to our class blog. On the top button bar, click "Reading Rainbow." You will be taken directly to our class's page. Click on your child's balloon and have them enter their password. Please take advantage of this incredible library. You will not be disappointed!

Of course it is not all about the digital books.  We read a perfect book that combined our Olympic theme and a great message about dreaming big and believing in yourself.  The book is called Nadia: The Girl Who Couldn't Sit Still. We also watched a short video clip of Nadia's gold medal performance in the 1976 Olympic games.  The children were amazed.  After reading her story, we set our own goals for our first and second grade years.  The students did some great thinking and writing.  I will share some of the goals in a later post.  With our goal setting we had a gold medal snack!

Yes, it was certainly a busy day.  We also mixed in some math, recess, and birthday treats. We often took brain breaks.  I used a site called GoNoodle.  They have tons of fun brain breaks including virtual track and field events introduced by real Olympic track athletes.  I think the children's favorite was the 100M hurdles.  Look at them go!

At the closing ceremony at the end of the day, each student earned a gold medal.  I asked the students what their gold medal moment was for their first day in the combo.  Enjoy the slide show below the photo collage to see each child's gold medal moment.

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