Math Tools Exploration

This year I am so lucky to have a large crew of English Language Learners in my class. They present the most unique opportunity of introducing children to a new language, new content, and new methods. Before throwing students in to an overwhelming amount of math curriculum, we explored tools that help us to learn math (manipulatives).

We broke up into six groups and rotated throughout the classroom. Each table had a different manipulative for students to explore. We worked on identifying the tool, drawing what it looked like, and thinking about how the tool can help us to learn math. My hope is that by all of these different exposures, students will be more comfortable using the tools in application settings later on in the school year! And it was a really fun way to explore math!

Don't Worry Wemberly...

...we're excited for first grade!!

Happy first day of school to all of the teachers who started today. What a whirlwind the first day always is! The first day of school is one of my absolute favorites as students walk in with that fresh sparkle of excitement in their eyes.

I love to start the school day with a read-aloud and first day of school books are so great! One of my favorite stories (and authors) is Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes...as I'm sure many others can agree. Such a sweet story that students can easily relate to. Today after reading the story we created a graph (hats off to my teaching partner for the idea) to chart how we felt before the first day of school. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised that 19 kiddos were excited! We had so much fun using sticky notes (a first grade favorite) and interacting with the anchor chart.

Following our graphing, we did a readers response coloring/writing activity. Typically I have students finish the sentence frame "I was worried about..." but today the students wanted to write "I was excited about..." and their answers were just the sweetest. From meeting the teacher to making new friends to reading new books...they covered it all!

I can't wait for the second day of school and I hope that my students are just as excited for day two!