A Day in the Life of a First Grade Teacher

Finally!  A blog about school.  As I was formulating my thoughts for #Nerdultion and how to share how I run my classroom, I thought I would just tell the story of my day and my reflections on how things went.  Before I do that; thanks for bearing with me as I try my hand at blogging.  I'm not sure if I'm sharing anything significant yet, but I'm having fun and learning about myself as a writer.

So my day started with more oversleeping.  I learned someone had turned down my alarm, that is why it hasn't been going off. And let's face it, I love my bed. Even with some unintended sleeping in to start my day, I made it to work with enough time to finalize preparations for today.

First graders started our day with a morning meeting.  In our meeting I learned that the tooth fairy will come even if you have lost your tooth.  A local college basketball team is doing very well.  You cannot buy a "Ghostie" on the Star Wars video game.  One little firstie would rather be having summer, because she loves camp so much.  This is my favorite time of day.  If you can make time for a Morning Meeting, I highly recommend it.  I have learned so many things about my first graders in this format.

I was encouraged by a Running Record that I took today.  I learned this little one is building some reading stamina and can read text.  Hooray!  I was really worried before Thanksgiving.  I feel encouraged today.

During our Interactive Read Aloud, I saw a reluctant reader scooting closer and closer to the front when I was reading.  By the end of the story, he was practically in the chair with me.  The plot of the story involved homework.  When he leaned over and said, "I see you doing your homework there," I did a silent cheer.  (I was gathering behavior data on a couple of students.)  I offered him the book to read, and his face lit up.  He was so attached to that book for the rest of the day.

By lunch, our room looks like the photo below.

We work hard in First Grade!

At lunchtime, I ate in my room to catch up on some paperwork.  Plus all my colleagues were gone or in meetings.  So I peeked at #nerdlution a bit.  And saw a call out for pictures.  Annie, I'm still saying a cup of tea and our laptops would make a great photo-op!  (I just called you out on our blog!)

On the way to afternoon specials, I was asked this question, "Mrs Limback, are you smelling what I'm smelling?"  I'm still giggling about that one.  (It was burnt popcorn.)

During Social Studies, we tried to finish up some work on United States Symbols.  I didn't get as much done as I had hoped.  I would love to figure out a way to be efficient with project based learning during this time of day.  If you have suggestions on how to do this efficiently, I would love to hear it.  I feel like this is too teacher-directed.

At recess time this was my view as I did some brainstorming with our school psychologist on a few behaviors.  So many kids have made awesome growth, she's been great in helping me brainstorm strategies that will be effective to build a classroom community.  It was a great conversation.  Lots of conversation about how to build a community that is engaged and authentic.

From the back, looking to the front!

Math starts!  We are just moving away from whole class lessons to some grouping during this time.  

We can write to share our mathematical thinking.  

This friend was exploring counting by 2's using odd and even numbers. 

Geoboard work.  

2 friends working on creating sums of numbers.  

Time with pattern blocks, using counting as they build towers.

During this time I'm working with groups.  Today it went well.  We are in the early stages of grouping, so there were some bumps as we figure out how to work in our new math setting.  Our unit focus is on measurement, standard and nonstandard units.  I would have taken pictures of the work we were doing with this concept, but I was teaching it.  :)  

And it's time to go home!  A little bit of cleaning up with my youngest son helping out, and we're off to our night life.  I can't wait to do it again tomorrow!