I survived the first week....

Is anyone else as out of shape for this as I am?  I completely forgot how exhausting this ol' teaching thing is.  I don't think I would be nearly as tired if we hadn't had to put an entire school together in 4 days, host Open House on the evening of the 4th day and begin school on the 5th day.....holy cow, am I thankful for a Saturday!

Any who, here's a peek at my adorable new 4th graders and all the fun we've been having during the first two days of school.

On the first day we completed the puzzle activity featured on Lorraine's blog, Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies.  We changed ours up a little and took the 100 piece puzzle and gave each person in the group 25 pieces.  The could only touch their pieces unless they were adding them to the puzzle itself.  This ensured that everyone was engaged and participating and that no one individual was running the show.  I still had 2 little peeps who sorta opted out and just sat there and watched, but we just kept encouraging them!

On the second day we completed another activity featured in the same post by Lorraine.  This one was just too much fun!!!  I think my fourth graders will be talking about this all year!!!

We ended our second day with a Recipe for Success activity that I found on Pinterest.  The original idea came from Eating Abroad, The Adventures of a Traveling Teacher. Oh, and the cute little recipe card and snack bowl labels....freebie on her blog!!! Look how stinkin' cute these photos are!!!  I will definitely be doing this one next year!  We had the best little discussion about success, and since we have already defined these words and they are so important I may just use them to introduce Word Work next week.

I teach reading to all the 4th graders in our building in 3 different sections.  On Thursday I got to meet the other two sections.  They completed a scavenger hunt in my classroom to locate all the supplies we will use during the year.  Then we worked on a Reading Inventory that got from Laura Candler.  I absolutely LOVE reading about their thoughts on reading!!!!