August 23, 2010
Mrs. Miller

After much anticipation, the first day of school had finally arrived! Many of the students came in early after attending the school breakfast. I was happy to have the opportunity to meet several parents who accompanied their children to class. As the clock ticked closer to 8:35, more and more students trickled in. While students waited for the rest of their classmates to arrive, they worked on a name word search I had placed on their desks.

When the bell rang, I began by introducing myself. I think everyone was a bit nervous about being in a new class with a new teacher, so I assured them we are going to have a great year (and that teachers get nervous too). I was excited to learn that 30 students will spend 180 days in my classroom. Next we put our names on our planners that I had placed on their desk. I told the students to make sure they wrote their names in cursive. I explained to them that in 5th grade we do everything in cursive.

Once the class finished writing their names on their planner, we discussed various aspects of life in Room 18 - things like lining up for lunch and fire drills, Homeworkopoly, Behavior Chart, Five Week Parties, The Daily Happenings, Watchdog News, and MillerCasts.

Once we finished our discussion on classroom rules and procedures, it was time to get up and out of our seats. So that we all could get to know each other better, I had the students go on a 'Meet Your Classmate" classroom scavenger hunt. Students had to go around the classroom and find other students who had done one of the items on the scavenger page. For example, they had to find someone who went on a 5-mile hike this summer, someone who has gray eyes, someone who has two pet dogs or cats, and someone who has put their feet in the Atlantic Ocean. For the next fifteen minutes, the room was filled with students asking each other questions like "Do you have gray eyes?", or "Have you been to Europe?"

When we had finished, we learned that everyone loves pizza and carried a backpack to school today, 23 students read more than 10 books this summer, 16 students went to another school, 9 students flew on a plane this summer, 3 students have been east of the Mississippi river, 17 students enjoys snow skiing and 27 students like swimming.

Before going to recess, I took some time and, using our classroom's projection system and Smartboard, showed the class our classroom website. I briefly explained some of the site's features such as MillerCast, student work, Class Blog, iPod Flash Cards, Soaring Eagles Club, and Watchdog News. Students were excited to hear that their writing, artwork, and voices (for our podcast and Watchdog News) will soon grace the website's pages. I showed them how visitors from all over the world will be seeing their work.

After our much-needed recess, we did Monday's Self-Start. I explained we would do three Self-Starts each week. We would also learn a new word each week. This week's word is elevate. It is a verb and the definition is to raise or lift up. The class came up with several sentences using the elevate in the sentence correctly. I explained that on Fridays they would have a Self-Start quiz. I would choose two questions from each day and they would also need to know the word of the week, what part of speech it is, its definition, and use it in a sentence correctly. They were excited to learn that they could get two bonus points on their quiz each week. How you might ask? By guessing the Mystery State. Everyday they will get a clue. Today's clue is..Down, down, down! In this state you will find a desert with the lowest elevation of any place in North America.

After much guessing what the Mystery State is, we settled down for a math assignment. It was a review worksheet on simple addition and subtraction facts. several of the students completed the assignment and the rest took it home to complete.

We had 20 minutes before lunch so I started reading Nightmare Mountain. It is one of my favorite read a loud books. It is about a 12-year old girl name Molly who is staying with her aunt, uncle, and cousin Glendon for a month while her mother is on a month business trip. Her aunt and uncle are very excited to have her stay with them but Glendon is less than thrilled.

12:20 arrived and we were excited for a well deserved lunch break. I reviewed the procedure for lining up and walking down the hall to the lunchroom. I was extremely pleased how quiet they walked down the hall. The students enjoyed eating their lunches and playing outside. I had an enjoyable time talking with my fellow teachers.

After lunch, next on the agenda was Art. The art project was to make a caricture of themselves. First I showed them caricatures that were made by former students and one that was done of me. After much giggling, we talked about exaggerating one feature of your head such as the nose that is extremely long on my picture. We discussed if you have small eyes you would make them smaller on your caricature. Or if your ears are a little large, you would make them larger. The students were extremely excited to start their project.

Once we finished talking about caricatures, I let the students choose the bodies they wanted to draw their heads on. Some of the body types that were chosen were a teacher, skier, golfer, fisherman, cheerleader, tennis player, and small girl or boy. I gave each table several examples of eyes, noses, ears, mouths, etc. that they could look at when doing their art project.

We talked about taking our time because these caricatures would be around our door for the entire year and they would be the cover of the 5th grade memory book. I told the students that I would take pictures of the caricatures and put them on our website "Showcase of Student Work". They were very excited to learn that friends and relatives would be able to see their drawings.

We only worked on the caricatures until 1;30 because it was time to go to PE. The students favorite subject. :) We ran around the field once and played a game called "Octo".

After coming back to class, the students continued working on their caricatures. I took pictures of all the students. I will used their pictures as playing pieces for our weekly Homeworkopoly game. I continued reading "Nightmare Mountain". We left off at the point where Molly's aunt is in a coma in the hospital, someone is stealing their llamas, and Molly expects that Glendon, her cousin, is trying to kill her. The students wanted me to keep reading but I assurred them that I would read again tomorrow.

With just a few minutes left before the bell rang, students packed up their things and got ready to go. I had presented them with a lot of new information today, so we took a few minutes to review what we talked about. I told them they did an awesome job today and not to worry -- there was plenty of fun to come. The bell rang, I dismissed the class, walked to my desk, and sat down to rest. It's been a while since I've stood up all day! I'm tired, but I can't wait for tomorrow! It was a wonderful first day of school.