What did you do at school today?

I asked my three-year-old son, Will, what he did at daycare today. Sometimes I get a minute of amount of information from him. Today I got, "I played...oh, I don't know. I don't remember, Mommy." And so I consulted the trusty daily slip that our daycare provider sends home to get a better sense of what they really did today. Like us in first grade, they did a lot at daycare, but Will was simply too exhausted and distracted to tell me about it. Our days at school are busy, hard-working, and, often, exhausting. Since I have more photos than normal from today, I thought I should share some of what we did. If your child is anything like mine, you didn't hear about most of this! :-)

We started our day with a fast and fun movement activity--The Beanbag Boogie--during our Morning Meeting. Students were moving and grooving so much I couldn't get a clear picture of the action! :-)

Your students WOWED me during Reading Workshop today. We've been discussing how readers think and talk about what they are reading to help ensure good comprehension of a text. Today I taught students how readers can keep track of their thinking using sticky notes to jot down thoughts and ideas as they read. These students LOVE to think and share ideas--it's incredible. Below you can see students ready to think and write/draw on sticky notes, clipboards in hand.

After our whole-group mini-lesson, students went off to do Read to Self time. I invited them to use sticky notes to track their thinking as they were reading and a vast majority of students were very excited to try it.The student below made a great connection in her book to her own life (the kitten in the book wanders off and gets lost, which made her think of a time when her cat got outside accidentally).

Reading and then writing about what she was thinking/reminded of...

Proud to show off the book and sticky notes!

Here are some of the sticky notes from today's reading. We have some thoughtful readers!

We began our science unit about magnets this week. Today, many students were able to experiment with magnets, read magnet books, do a pretest re: magnets, and start making a Types of Magnets mini-book.