Today I was so happy to welcome 17 smiling faces into 4J. We are still waiting on 2 more to join us which will bring our class up to 19 students! We had a busy morning multi-tasking to complete some ‘start of the year’ activities to get us thinking about our goals for Grade 4.

Our 3 new students, Ardelia (4R), Shi Jun (4J) and Laila (4J) worked together to make this welcome sign for students. Yesterday they had a school tour by Emily in 4J and we played a few fun games to get to know each other.

Today we started off with some kinesthetic ice-breaker activities for both 4J & 4R! “REACH OUT” was one game where students had to ‘reach out’ to find someone with a given characteristic (ex: same shoe size)…we learned a lot about each other! The next activity was called “Roundabout” where students shared stories and experiences in a rotating circle…then they shared what they had learned about their partner. The games were fun but mostly I think students enjoyed having a chance to catch up after a long summer!

Back in our homerooms, 4J students decorated their lockers, worked on their Visible Thinking notebooks, started on their ‘Puzzle Piece’ (see previous post) and we also started our read aloud of ‘Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing‘ by Judy Bloom. Before reading we talked about what makes us choose books and students were keen to answer that Boring books tend to have:

* Too many/few words

* Too easy/difficult words

* and (most importantly) don’t tend to hold our interest.

This year we will work on finding out what our interests are and explore new kinds of literature to enhance our reading, writing and vocabulary!

Overall it’s been a busy but productive first day! Can’t wait to learn more about our fabulous class!