Two exciting things happened this past week--we formally started Teacher's Helper and our invisible rug showed up Wednesday morning!

Instead of the traditional classroom jobs, we have Teacher's Helper. Every day a different child has the responsibility of helper. They become Line Leader, take the lunch count and attendance down to the office, take the black lunch tub to the lunchroom, and help in any way that I might need. We will go through one complete rotation every 25 days, so their will be plenty of opportunities over the school year for your child to help.

And

Even though you couldn't see it, we've been coming to the "rug" several times a day.
Well, Wednesday morning the rug finally appeared in our room. It caused quite a stir. As soon as they saw it, the kids scrambled to find their favorite animal letter. They were a little disappointed that they couldn't pick their spots, but were excited to find which animal letter their spot was on!

Wow, we've been in school for a week and a half already, and we've had a great time! Our focus these past days has been learning all about 1st grade and getting to know each other. To help learn everyone's name, we've played name games and sang name songs. Seems like the favorite was "Willoughby Wallaby Woo" by Raffi. (You'll find the lyrics below.) It's a silly rhyming song that's simply loads of fun. As each day passes, we are building our learning community and becoming more of a team. We are off to a fantastic start!

Willoughby wallaby wee

an elephant sat on me

Willoughby wallaby woo

an elephant sat on you

Willoughby wallaby Wike

an elephant sat on Mike

Willoughby wallaby Wenny

an elephant sat on Jenny

(and so on)

Thanks for signing up to receive this blog by email. It is currently under construction and will be a work in progress as the year progresses. At first, there will only be weekly posts. Later in the year, it might become daily posts depending on the feedback I receive from you.

What you can expect on this blog:

• Updates and pictures of what's going on in our classroom (be sure you've signed the permission sheet to allow your child's picture to be posted on the internet)
• Resources: links to fun sites for your children to enjoy while they learn.
• Up coming events

If there's something you think would be helpful on this blog, let me know and we'll see what we can do.