A Peek at my {First} Week!

First thing's first: I have got to get back on a regular sleeping schedule! Tonight's attempt failed miserably - I was asleep before 9:00 but then woke up at 12:30 and have been awake ever since. So here I am at 2:41 in the morning working on my first ever set of visual plans for the first week of school (did I mention we start in just two days?!)

These plans are part of Mrs. Wills' "Peek at my Week" linky. Bear with me and my first sleep deprived attempt!

Morning:

Clearly not enough space in my visual plans to write down every procedure/expectation that I need to go over in the first week! I am already anxious about making sure I cover everything the kids need to know, especially since they are coming from a new building.

I am loving my back-to-school writing plans this year. Even though we are starting small, I am still giving students opportunities to get their ideas down on paper right from the get-go.

As you can see, I still need to plan for Thursday's reader's workshop time. By this point, we will be done working in our back to school packets but I am hesitant to begin teaching workshop procedures at such an awkward time in the week (especially because they are bound to forget everything by the time Monday morning rolls around).

Afternoon:

Our afternoon contains more readiness activities. The first day time capsule was one of my favorite activities of my first year. In addition to filling out the sheet with their interests (and very inventive spellings), I have them write "Today is the first day of school" on a piece of paper. The fun part comes at the end of the year when we repeat the activities and I hand back what students did on the first day of school. I have never heard my kiddos laugh as hard as they did when they saw how much they had changed since that first day of school. Memorable moments:

1. One of my students wrote he wanted to be a puppy when he grew up.
2. My lowest student, who on the first day said "I don't know how to write so I'll just draw this flower", wrote the last day of school sentence flawlessly :')

In addition to the time capsule, will learn/review short vowel sounds this week, as next week we jump right in to our short a word family spelling list. 

I'm prepping my students for our first math unit by reviewing concepts such as number order, counting objects, and adding small numbers. Friday's fun activity has students explore different math manipulatives in centers.

Finally, I decided to take time at the end of the day to review behavioral expectations, both within the classroom and school-wide. We look at examples/non-examples of good behavior with the Sweet & Sour behavior pack of activities and also dive into the district's social-emotional learning program.

Phew! Is it the first day yet?