Happy New Year!

This first week of first grade in the new year proved to be one filled with lots of new beginnings.

We started off the week by creating a new set of classroom rules for 2015.  The students were completely in charge of the content and wording...I was merely the scribe.  Everyone seems very happy with the outcome.

Each student also created a new hope or dream for the second half of first grade.  Students were very thoughtful, taking the time to think about the thing they most want to achieve in the coming months.  They are now hanging in our classroom as a reminder of what each of us is working toward.

We started new reading and writing units as well!  Students are writing how-to books in writers' workshop, and are digging deep into nonfiction texts in readers' workshop.

In science we started our Balance and Motion unit.  In our first balance experiment, students discovered different ways to balance an oaktag crayfish on their fingers with and without counterweights!