The first week of school started with a bang. Everyone was so excited to explore the classroom and dig into some of the fun work that we had out. We spent most of our first week getting familiar with the classroom, the school schedule, and the school expectations. We started our first morning meeting with introducing the talking stick. During morning meeting, whomever is holding the talking stick is the only person who can talk. We passed around the talking stick as each student introduced themself with their name and their age. We also did this on Wednesday when we had a full class, but this time we asked what their favorite food was (a lot of pasta lovers in this class).

We explained how we set up our work station by rolling out a mat on the floor or table before we set out our work and how we clean up after we are done. How we set up our snack and our lunch, expectations at the snack and lunch table, and how we clean up after we are done. As the students began to interact with each other and play, we had conversations about how to ask for a turn and how to ask to join in and play. Many students quickly made new friends, so we thought it best to sing the song “Make New Friends” at morning meeting, followed by “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” to get our bodies moving.

The weather this week was beautiful for the most part, so we spent a lot of time outside. The students loved climbing on the climbing wall, the tunnel, and the structure. There were some archaeologists in the sand box looking for meteorites, as well as some chefs making apple soup in the mud kitchen. In the field next to the school, the farmer began riding the tractor around, which got everyone very excited.

Friday, we had a very small class of only 5 students. We thought this was a perfect day to throw a dance party and play some freeze dance.

Thank you everyone who helped make the start of the school year so great!