1st graders are great

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1st graders are great
By Gloria Tate

I just completed a school year of teaching first grade. It was a wonderful experience. There were lots of "boo-boos" and I refused to tie all those shoelaces. It was their homework assignment to learn to tie their own laces,
or they could find a friend to help them.
The first part of the year I had the students write in a journal at least twice a week and do "inventive spelling" (the way it sounds). But, I found the students were upset because they wanted to spell everything correctly. I purchased index boxes, wrote spell ck. on the top of the box, and put alphabet dividers with index cards inside. When

a student raised his/her hand for spelling, I walked over, spelled the word and the student wrote it on an index card and filed it under thhe correct letter. It helped their spelling and also taught them to use their own dictionary.