Day 1-Monday, August 15

Because I teach in a multi-grade classroom, many of my students were there last year-in fact, most of them are not new. I started the day saying we were going to have a very different year this year. I asked them to work in groups to create the rules they thought a classroom needed. We viewed their rules and then I revealed mine. We spent time practicing the rules with Class-Yes and Teach-OK helping them. They caught on quickly and seemed to enjoy the movement.

We played games to practice Volume Control and the rest of the rules. They loved shooting rubber bands at six stacked cups and then coming up with their own way of arranging the cups. Making words from large letter cards was another favorite. I would ask a question and they had to work to come up with the answer. When I said, "What could I find in the ocean?", the answers were boat, crab and sand. All were correct.

We ended the day with a lot of energy and both the kids and the teacher left with a smile on their faces!