I want to welcome all of our new parents to the blog! I am excited for a new and exciting year. We take a lot of pictures so this is a great place for you to see all of the wonderful things we are doing in our classroom! First I would like to take you on a tour of our classroom and show you the environment your child will be learning in throughout the year. I have put a lot of effort in creating a calming and fun environment that provides the students with many different learning experiences. Some of you may have already noticed that the walls are pretty bare right now and that is to allow the students to add their personality and touches to our classroom!
This is the area by my desk.
Here are some pictures of our whole classroom.
This shows our home living area and sand table as well as the writing area. The students use social skills to practice real life situations to create jobs and characters. They will solve problems together, organize and plan, share and take turns, work together, and many more! The writing area allows the students to record their ideas and stories on paper. They can write letters, pictures, cards, books, documentation, etc.
This is our loose parts area. I set out some things for the students to start working with. They will use their fine motor skills to create plans and creations in this wonderful area. Underneath this area is the science and engineering area. The students use so many 21st century skills here such as coming up with designs, building creations, and testing their plans.
I made turn tables for the middle of the table for the students to share materials. Colors are separated and each jar has a different color in it. In the middle of the turn table we have scissors, glue sticks, pencils, and erasers. In the large jar in the middle is where the students name tags go. This is our "Look Closer" table that will be filled with lots of different items for them to observe up close with magnifying glasses. The students will document what they are seeing and noticing. We will be adding things related to our inquiries or things brought in from home by the students that they might be interested in looking closer at.
On the left is our listening area where the students will listen to books on tape/cd, read and listen to stories with their partners, etc.
Here is a look at the first two "First Days" of school. On Thursday we had students with the last name A-K and Friday we had students with the last name L-Z. We waited in the gym for all of our friends to get to school before we went up to find our classroom.
We practiced sitting in meeting appropriately.
We learned how to use the turn tables on our table, how to find our name tags, and we even learned some sign language!
We read some stories like "The Kissing Hand" & "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?"
We took a tour of our school and found all of the important areas and rooms that we need such as literacy lab, the art room, music room, gym, computer lab/library, clinic, office, etc.
We practiced how to go down the stairs safely making sure to hold onto the railing with our eyes forward.
Since it was so hot we made sure to get lots of drinks!
Some of the boys in our class practicing keeping a "bubble" in their mouth while walking in the hallway.
Lunchtime was exciting as well. We found the table where we sat and those who bought a school lunch went through the line and chose the items they wanted to eat.
We made sure to hold our trays with both hands really tight so we didn't drop our food!
We also took a tour of our playground to learn the appropriate ways to use the materials & explore our outdoor area. We learned about our garden area and how it is very important not to pick any of the flowers or plants that we see on the playground so that our other friends can enjoy observing them as well. We also learned where our garden bed was, that we are going to use it to plant something this year, and how important it is to take care of them by not running in them, kicking the plants, etc.
We learned how to use the sound exploration area and how to properly use the slides.
We observed the pumpkin & squash plants that were growing in our garden area.
The students explored the hula hoops and kick balls as well.
We explored different math materials and discussed how we might use them appropriately. Our friends had fun making creations with the marbles.
Braylon was making different creations and Betsy was sorting the shapes by color.
Amir was building with the marker lids and Alyssa was using the paper clips to make shapes.
Lily & Betsy were measuring with different materials and Elleigh was using inchworms to explore measuring.
Brady & Kaylee were exploring with the paper clips as well.
Carson made a pattern with 6 different colored marker lids! We also explored some literacy materials as well. Jaden used wooden pieces to make a creation.
Here some friends used them to make letters.
We explored foam letters.
And letter tiles to make our names.
Soleil used water bottle lids to make her name. Elleigh & Braydon made different letters with pattern blocks.
A few last pictures of us walking to the buses and getting on our bus.
Thanks for stopping by and checking out what is happening in our classroom. We had a great first two days and I am looking forward to a great year ahead! I hope you all had a great holiday weekend and I look forward to see what new things come up this week!
Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant
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