First Few Days of 2nd Grade - 2023

Welcome back to school!! We only had 2 days of school for our first week, but next week, we're going to be going right in to all of our curriculum. It's a great curriculum, so that doesn't bother me any.

Last year, I was just trying to stay afloat with all the NEW in my life. SO this year, I'm going to try and blog about our week so you can take a peek into our Classical Academy life. It's quite grand.

Here was my Meet the Teacher Picture - I shared a reel over on my instagram, if you want to see that!

This is what the board has looked like in the past...but we don't have bulletin boards yet (new school... doing things in stages as the money comes in), so I just improvise and put them on the white board with magnets. 

Now, obviously, we take a LOT of time going over procedures, the notebooks, folders, and binders...and alllll the other to-do list items we have to get done on the first day or 2. But these are some of the fun things we did throughout. 

We read one of my favorite books for the first day. And it was really awesome last year since our school was a new school. 

I also took their picture for their memory books. I was so proud of myself for actually doing this the first day! lol That's why my sign says the first week...because sometimes I don't get to it on the first day. Although, now that my students wear uniforms, no one would be the wiser, right!? ha!

They also started coloring some of their pages in their Memory books. I love these books every year. Here's what they beginning of the year looks like....

And then at the end of the year, they get the same pages, but don't remember their beginning of year responses, so they can compare their answers...but also their handwriting and their drawings!

In math, we do an activity where we try to figure out the teacher. I give them some different math problems, and they have to try to work it out on their desk. It's a great way to see who remembers what strategies from First Grade. 

To get them up and moving, we play a "Snowball" game where they write their name on a piece of paper and crumple up the paper. 

I play music and they throw around the snowballs at each other until I stop the music. Then they have to open the paper, find the person whose name is on the paper and then introduce themselves or say hi to each other (using their names). We do a few rounds of this, and they love it!

Another ELA activity we do is to read Listen Buddy, and then talk about Whole Body Listening. Now, you would hopefully know your students at this point, if they have a 504 or IEP. They may not listen like this...but in general, these are the things we focus on when we're listening. 

We also did the "M&M" activity - Marvelous to Meet You. 

I played KidsBop music and they walked around (or danced around!) and when the music stopped, they did "hand up, pair up" to find a partner.

I told them the person with the shortest hair always went first. They grabbed an M&M and read the chart for the corresponding color. Once that person was finished, the other person went. We did a few rounds of this, and the kids asked for more!

You can click THIS LINK to download a printable copy of this. I just hand wrote this real quick the day before.

And since our heat index here is through the roof, we had inside recess on Friday. So that meant we had plenty of time to get done with our first window clings!

I did the pineapples at the end of the year last year, but my teammate convinced me to do them first this year. I just love how these look on our windows.

Check out THIS post for more ideas throughout the year.

And then it was time to go home, after a FULL two first days.

Next week, we're hitting the curriculum and first up is Fairy Tales! Hopefully, I'll be back to share with you more on that.