WILD About First Grade!: My Last Week of School

My last week of school was 2 weeks ago. We had 3 half-days to end our school year. LOVE that!! The week before was spent doing end of the year common assessments, given by our school district 3 weeks late! Yay us! First grade, for some crazy reason, was the only grade level that ended up having to take these LONG tests. So surviving the last few days of school was a must!

Our half-days are 8:10 - 11:50 and include a 15 minute recess & a 30 minute lunch (more like brunch since it's at 10:30). If you're lucky enough to have a prep on one of those days, that's another 50 minutes. So you can tell that there isn't much time in the day to do a lot.

Monday was our Relax & Read Day. The students brought in pillows or blankets to get cozy while kicking' back to read. They sat with their book boxes and a friend, if they wanted, and just enjoyed reading! When told they could take off their shoes, you would've thought they won the lottery! Haha! It was awesome to see everyone engaged and having fun.

Some of my girls all cuddled up.

These 2 were taking turns reading to each other. When one struggled with a word, the other gave strategies to help him out. (Made me so happy to see that!)

Is this not the cutest thing?! The boy in the middle read aloud a science book while the others listened.

I wish I would've videoed this one. The boy holding the book is an amazing reader! He was reading all about poisonous animals, stopping every so often when the others asked questions. They were eagerly listening and he was patiently answering their questions or showing them the answers in the text. I kept overhearing "Wow! I didn't know that!" or "That's so cool!"

This boy, who was retained last year, had a year filled with tremendous growth! He went from not knowing many sounds/letters to fluently reading at grade level. His confidence grew and he turned into a kid who loved school. As he read, he kept saying out loud "I'm reading all these books! Mrs. Tompkins, I need more books to read. I just keep finishing them all!"

Tuesday was Game Day. The students brought in games that they could play with each other. There was such a variety that there was something for everyone!