Our first week was so exciting! Students saw friends they had in kindergarten and met brand new friends as well. Between learning daily first grade routines, we talked about goals we want to achieve in first grade.

We also talked about school rules. At GCES we follow the 3 R's: responsible, respectful, and ready. Then we brainstormed how we follow rules in our own classroom. Here are the rules the students created for our classroom:

The students are also putting together a class book about how we can be bucket fillers.  Here are some of their ideas:

And that was just a few things we did our first week in first grade! 

We have been doing lots of fun things this week in first grade.  One of the first things we read in our class was Have You Filled a Bucket Today? By Carol McCloud.  We learned that everyone carries an invisible bucket that holds our good thoughts and feelings.  When our buckets are full, we feel happy.  When our buckets are empty, we feel sad.  Bucket fillers are people who are kind; help one another; give compliments; simply smiling at someone can fill their bucket!  A bucket dipper is a person who dips into other peoples buckets by being mean, inconsiderate, or a bully. 

To promote bucket filling in our class, we have a class bucket.  We can fill our bucket when we are all working hard as a class or receive a positive compliment from other staff and teachers at school.  When our class bucket is full, we will get to choose a class reward.

Soon, the students will be able to fill each others buckets by leaving written compliments to one another.  Students will be able to share and read their compliments and feel all the warm positive feelings we can receive from one another.

I would love to hear how your child has filled your bucket at home!  Did they help clean up their toys without you asking?  Did they give you a big hug when you least expected it? 

We are bucket fillers!

I'm so excited to start the school year!! What do you think of the transformation?