First Graders Scared Me Until.....

I have not been more than a handful of classes at my main placement. One classroom that stood out in my mind when I was reading this article and kept coming to mind even during the section about literacy and play. I was able to observe a first grade classroom for one morning. The teacher used many of the techniques in the article.

In the morning she had the students sit on the carpet for circle time. They had a morning message and news time. The students had to tell the teacher what day of the week it was and what season it is. They had to use the calendar and find the appropriate month tag, day tag, and season sign and place them up on the board. They discussed school news in the news center (we were having a lock down drill that day) and it was all written on the board for them under the “What’s the new news?” section of the board.

Students were then assigned to different learning centers. All of them involved reading in some way and others integrated reading, writing, and art. The writing center that day included a thumbprint art center. The students made one, and only one, thumb print and then they had to turn that thumb print into an identifiable image. When all of the students came back for share time, the students who were in the art and writing center for that morning shared their art. The other students asked the person presenting about the image that they had made. The student had to respond to questions and in the process developed a story about the image. They went back to the writing center and wrote out the story on a line sheet of paper and the image was glued to the lined paper. It was really an interesting process to watch. I was amazed at how many ideas and questions each of the students came up with. I thought that the students presenting would not be able to remember everything they shared about the image back at the writing center, but that was not the case. They not only remembered what they said to the group, they added more detail to the story.

I also thought about the library in this class. The library was filled with books, but one of the first things that drew my eye in the class was the handmade “book bags.” The bags are made to fit over the back of the chairs and large pocket in the back holds the books that the students are currently reading. I walked around and took a peek at some of the books in each of the bags. It varied greatly, but one thing that was constant was the fact that each student knew the expectations about independent reading. If they were done with an assignment, they had to be reading a book from their bag or they needed to go to the reading center and pick a new book and begin reading. If they were struggling with something they had to find an adult to help them or ask a table buddy.

It was amazing to see these first graders so actively involved in reading and writing. I was surprised at what they were able to do and thankful for the opportunity to observe.