Survival of the First Day

I survived!  And it really wasn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. My students are so sweet, yet so full of energy!  It's going to be a great year :)

I think I mentioned in another post that I was going to try and allow my students to create their own rules. This surprisingly worked really well!  Of course, we got some silly rules such as "no picking your nose".  I couldn't help but laugh. We began by reading David Goes to School by David Shannon. For people who haven't read this, it's about a boy named David that is constantly getting yelled at for his behaviors throughout the day. I used this to get my students' brains thinking about the rules. And they did a fantastic job!

Another thing we did today was give out jobs to each student. I want each student to contribute to the classroom and feel like they have a role. I found these cute wooden people at Michaels (the craft store) during the summer and the students were able to create their own person. I posted the different jobs and went over what each job description was today. Once the students were finished creating their stick person, I placed them all in a bucket. I would read the job and then choose one or two people for that job. I plan on rotating these every other Monday.