Hello First Grade Families!

Week two of first grade was a blast for all of us! There is so much kindness and joy in our students. During recess, the entire class elected (without teacher prompting) to play a group game of tag several times. How special it is for our students to willingly choose to come together in this beautiful, inclusive way.

We enjoyed learning more forms during our form drawing block this week. We completed this block today and will be moving onto our first language arts block next week. We practiced skip counting by twos this week with great success, and loved figuring out how many groups of twos go into larger numbers.

The students had so much fun learning and playing during their special classes this week! They learned several new phrases in Mandarin class with Ki Cerina and explored what happens when yellow and blue are beside each other, and what happens when they touch, in their painting class with Ki Fatima. Please read the summary below shared with us from Ki Leah, our handwork teacher:

In handwork this week, we continued finger chaining and finger knitting. A few students were confident in these skills; they helped their friends and then they moved on to our next project of making their own knitting needles! The students had lots of fun sanding the wood, and sharpening their dowels to make a (safe) needle tip. Friends who were still practicing finger knitting and chaining on Thursday will join their classmates in needle making next week, as we continue sanding, sharpening, painting, and waxing our very first knitting needles.

Some updates for this week are as follows:

Drop off for grades classes is between 8:20am - 8:40am. Your promptness is greatly appreciated as we have much to learn each day and will start on time.

Ki Rachel will be at the picnic table each morning to greet our students. Students will walk down in groups of two or more to our forest classroom each morning. If the table is empty, do not worry; your student may need to wait a few minutes during this transition. At 8:40, Ki Rachel will leave the morning drop-off and join our class.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions at hayley@thegardenmarietta.org.

Warm regards,

Ki Hayley