First Day of School

Today was our first day back to preschool! The day went very smoothly, and we had a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to a great year with this group of students.

We used the book How Do Dinosaurs Go to School to talk about some of the simple rules and routines in our classroom. When I read it, I adapt the text slightly to apply more directly to my specific classroom and common situations that I find with preschool age students- like grabbing toys or not cleaning up after an activity.

The kids laugh at the silly dinosaurs in the book, and are quick to recognize the ways the dinosaurs are behaving inappropriately. It leads to some great discussions about what the dinosaurs could do differently, and then by the end of the book the dinosaurs have figured out what to do at school. It is a fun way to start talking about how to be a great friend and student- something we will practice all year long!

We also read the well-known Chicka Chicka Boom Boom as part of our overview of the alphabet this month. Every student is at different stages of alphabetic knowledge and reading development, and we will be doing a wide variety of activities to practice with letters, sounds and words throughout the year.

I decided to use the side of this filing cabinet as a magnet board this year, and created an alphabet tree as our first invitation to play. Since it is placed right next to the word wall, we will be finding different ways to work with both letters and words using the board.

I included a dinosaur in the art center today, along with a coconut tree, to remind us about the books we read today.

At the end of the day one student drew a dinosaur as part of her first day of school journal.