Ah, the joys of learning new words...like "enormous"

We have been busy bees these past two days! On Wednesday night, Highland had their annual English Learners Family Night which was a huge success! We had a great turnout of families that spoke a variety of languages attend: Spanish, Arabic, Oromo, Tibetan, and Chinese. It was humbling and thrilling to see everyone who has such a fundamental difference gather for one purpose-their children. I had two duties: greet people at the door and do childcare in K1. There were 75 (yes, I said it 75!!) children in one room!! It was organized chaos mixed with laughing children, mixed with 5 different languages being spoken in one room. HOW INCREDIBLE! Is Highland unreal or what? The night made for tired kiddos this morning, and one tired teacher (hence, no blog post last night). Here's an update about the last two days.

We have been practicing, practicing, practicing and we are getting so great at moving in our room, walking in the hallway, playing on the playground, and using our tools. We have been working together to make rules for our room and learn how to move and function in our room. Here are some friends modeling for us, as well as our posters we made together. 

Destiny and Wesley modeling how to sit side
by side while sharing.

Connor and Josiah modeling how partners
share one at a time.

Abby and Shayla modeling how to turn and
look at your partner when she/he is talking

Christopher modeling how to take
a break.

        Brandon modeling how to raise
       your hand on the carpet.

Davajah reminding us that our mouths
are silent when we listen.

We finished our Hopes and Dreams yesterday too! After working on each hope and dream we came together and talked about how we were going to make these come true. Through this discussion we found that there were some things that each of us must do, and these became our class rules. They are: 

1. Work together.

2. Listen to everyone.

3. Take care of our tools.

4. Be safe!

5. Have fun!

It's meaningful to our classroom community to have each kiddo involved in the process, and each student willingly aggreed to do these things! It's going to be a great year! Well, it already has.

These past two days we have found a common love between the kiddos in our room- music and dancing!! We absolutely can not get enough of it! Here's a list of songs we've enjoyed so far:

Animal Action (move like a certain animal)
Freeze!
Rock and Roll ABC's
Ze-Zi-Ziddly
Doe, a Deer (from the Sound of Music)
If You're Happy and You Know It
The Little Green Frog
Count by 5's
John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt

Singing and dancing together not only connects us as a community by allowing everyone to let loose and be silly, but also it teaches us how use self-control even when we are excited and having fun. We also respond to directions through song. For example, I will sing, "If you're sitting on your spot clap your hands" or "Come sit in the circle, the circle, the circle. Come sit in the circle we're ready to start" This works great and keeps the kiddos happy. Here are two epic pictures from some of our dance parties:

Abby and Naasifaayee during "Freeze!"

Wesley playing a mean air guitar during "Freeze!"

Finally, we have been learning how use, take out, and put away our learning tools. Today we used watercolor paints to paint pictures of our quiet places; places we think about to help us calm down and find our sense of self-control. These are beautiful! They will adorn our walls for awhile but will come home so you can see them. Check us out as we paint!

And, as promised, a picture of our beautiful birthday girl Anoosha who turned 7 this week! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Books We Read In Two Days:

A Quiet Place- Douglas Wood

Mean Jean- Alexis O'Neil

The Night Before First Grade - Natasha Wing

Ferdinand - Munro Leaf

Interesting Tidbits from our Day

Ms. Carlberg, "Tell me something you have or something you have seen that is enormous." Kiddo: "MY MOM IS ENORMOUS!!" (The hazard of teaching such exciting words.)

I asked two kiddos to pass out paint to each table spot. They saw that all of the paint was stored in one bin and devised a plan, completely independently, to hand them out. "Ok, so you hold the paint and follow me around and I'll put one on each spot. " "OK! Let's high five!"

One of our friends was very sad this morning upon leaving his family. He came up with tear filled eyes and collapsed into my arms. Instantly, 3 friends came over and said, "What is wrong, we see you're crying. We care about you, can we give you a hug?" (Then I had tears in my eyes!)

Seriously people, we have some AMAZING kids in Room F!!