Our First Spirit Assembly

This morning was our first spirit assembly of the 2013-14 school year! It was so fun to back in the gym for an assembly. Our principal Mrs. Barker started off the assembly by reviewing our expectations.

Earlier in the month, each student created a poster to illustrate expectations for a certain area of the school. Winners were chosen from each class. Their posters will be displayed around the school for the whole year. Our class was in charge of the bus dismissal lines. During the assembly, three winners from our class were announced! Our winners (from left to right) were McKenna, Alyssia and Xiao.

 McKenna's poster:

Alyssia's poster:

Xiao's poster:

Each month at Cherry Park, two students are chosen from each class to be honored for Student of the Month. We have a specific trait for every month. At our monthly spirit assembly, a skit is presented to demonstrate the following month's trait for Student of the Month.

We have a poster displayed in our classroom to remind students of each month's character trait.

Mr. McKenzie, Mrs. Brady, Mr. Muldoon, Mrs. O'Brien and Mrs. Johnson performed the skit at this month's assembly. Watch the video below to see their awesome skit!

We are looking forward to our next assembly when our October Students of the Month will be recognized and we'll learn about our next character trait!

Ms. Robertson Visits Our Classrom

Today Ms. Robertson, our school counselor, visited our classroom. She shared a slideshow about herself as well as what she does at our school.

Ms. Robertson sharing a slide with one of the most important things about herself...she loves kids!

So what does Ms. Robertson do?

She helps kids! She helps them with these things:

Ms. Robertson talked about the various small groups that students can join. She sent home permission slips with students who were interested in possibly joining a group.

 Alyssia passing out permission slips while Tim and Amira check out groups that are available.

After Ms. Robertson finished her presentation, we had some time to play a game called "All My Friends Who..." It was fun playing and getting to know more about each other!

If your child is interested in a small group, please return the signed permission slip as soon as possible. Please let me know if you need a permission slip.

Friendship Club Part 2!

As part of Friendship Club, students can earn Friendship Bucks. They can earn them for many different things, some of which are solving conflicts peacefully, completing work on time, being quick and quiet in the bathroom, following directions the first time, and being responsible in the hallway. This is the list that we came up with as a group, both ways to earn and lose Friendship Bucks.

Each month we set a goal of how many Friendship Bucks must be earned to attend our monthly Friendship Club meeting. At today's Friendship Club meeting, we reviewed the different strategies for solving conflicts. Below are videos of the 3rd graders demonstrating the Apologize strategy.

We also spent time making Friendship Bucks. Students were paired up and shared supplies as they created their own masterpieces! 

 Above (clockwise from top left): Maddie & Daeton, Andy & Tre, Akari & Kyra, Erick & Taverick

Below (clockwise from top left): Lang & Dylan, McKenna & Rose, King & Tim, Amaya & Layne

Everyone is so excited to start earning Friendship Bucks! We've set a goal of 15 Friendship Bucks in order to attend our next meeting which will be at the end of September!

2nd Grade Friendship Club

At Cherry Park, all second graders are members of Friendship Club. This week, we spent time everyday learning the different parts of Friendship Club. We started with the "Teaching Peace" song, a song we sing at the start of every Friendship Club meeting. We enlisted the help of some third graders who were part of Friendship Club last year. These students came in and helped teach the our new second graders the song.

Below is a video of the third graders. From left to right are Irina, Mary Jane, Alva, Gabriella, Victoria, Max, and Adrian.

One of the most important parts of Friendship Club is solving conflicts peacefully. We teach our students 7 strategies that they can use to solve conflicts. Students need to try 3 strategies before they come to a teacher. It's a great behavior management tool! It rarely gets to the point where students need to tell a teacher because they're able to solve conflicts peacefully and on their own. This is the poster with the strategies that all second grade teachers have displayed in our classrooms.

Below is a picture of Alva and Gabriella, two third graders who are demonstrating the Rock, Paper, Scissors strategy.

 
When students use one of the strategies, they are asked to explain to the rest of the second graders what strategy they used and what the situation was. In this video, Kyra and Julia explain how they used the Share and Take Turns strategy.

More to come on Friendship Club later!!

Finally! It's the First Day of School!

Our extra week of teacher training is over and we're finally starting school! We had a very busy day, filled with activities to get to know each other as well as learning the expectations of our classroom and school. We have 25 students in our classroom including 3 who are brand new to Cherry Park.

At Cherry Park we have 3 expectations that are followed by everyone. We have common expectations for areas such as bathrooms, hallways, bus lines and the cafeteria. Each classroom has the same expectations with specifics determined by each individual teacher. We spent much of our time learning everyday routines of our classroom.

We worked on getting to know each other through interviews. Students asked their new friends questions such as their favorite thing to do at school, activities they love doing outside of school, and their favorite food. It was fun spending the time learning about our new classmates!

Maddi and Kyra are all smiles while learning about each other!

Taverick and Xiao getting acquainted!

Julia and Andrea are becoming fast friends!

Lily and Tim sharing fun facts about themselves!

We had a great first day! Tomorrow we will dive into some academic activities and get our year started!

 

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A Successful Open House!

Because of our delayed start to the school year, this was the first time we had Open House before the start of school. All our teachers have been working hard to get their classrooms ready for the start of a new year!

Since none of my students had been in our classroom yet, I set up stations for open house. These included signing in, transportation info, and signup sheets for parent volunteers.

All the "boring" paperwork was then followed by a scavenger hunt around the classroom. Students worked to find different things around the room such as their desk and cubby, the classroom library, job chart, pencil sharpener and their friends who are in the same class.

Students received a special treat once they completed the scavenger hunt. These took a while to get ready but it was worth it! These popcorn bags were a huge hit! Definitely something that I will do again next year!

It was fun seeing so many excited kids last night! It's pretty obvious that they are so eager to start 2nd grade! And their teacher is too! Can't wait to start our year next week!

 

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