We survived the first week back at school!  It was hard being inside this week with the gorgeous weather beckoning us outside!  We had a great few days together and it was fun seeing the classroom dynamics and begin getting to know the students.

Here are some things we did this week…

• We did a fun team building activity where the students had limited supplies to try and build the tallest tower
• we joined Mr. Hancock’s class for some exploratory Math lessons
• we started to learn about our brain and how it is like a muscle – the more we practice the better we will get at something.  Our brain was designed to learn and we shouldn’t quit or give up when things are hard…after all, we can all do things now that we couldn’t do 5 years ago!
• We lerned about the importance of setting goals and will be setting some short and long term goals next week.
• we learned the difference between real reading and fake reading. We learned a big new word called Metacognition – thinking about your thinking!  We made a ‘real reading salad’ to demonstrate that real reading includes both text and thinking!
• we reflected on the tragedy of 9/11.
• We had a special guest do a cooking demonstration on building the ultimate burger.  This was compared to building the ultimate paragraph!  Did you know that the top portion of a burger bun can be compared to a topic sentence?  True story!

I will try and get some pictures of our first week to you in the next several day!  Have a fantastic weekend!

Mrs.Goosen