First Full Day of 2012: Revenge of the Kiddos

Another year, another promise to keep up with this blog daily!

SO: here's a list of everything that went wrong this morning before I even made it to the START of class on the first, full day with the kiddos:
1. Woke up 20 minutes late.
2. Forgot my folders for the kids at home (inexcusable!!).
3. Got stuck in 20 minutes of traffic (whyyyyyyy?).
4. Had my parking space stolen!!!  Grrrr... I haven't gotten to park in it ONCE yet.  Not cool, parking spot bandit.
5. I don't know what was happening with temperature/humidity in my classroom this weekend but when I walked in this morning, everything I had hung on the walls was on the floor.  Thank god I don't overdecorate so that the kids can have ownership of the room, otherwise I would have cried.


SO first impressions (!):
- Biggest class I've ever had.  As in intimidatingly big.  As in I'm pretty sure if they all banded together and rushed me and my aide, they could take us out with their tiny fists of fury.
- There are a few kids who've never been to school before in my class this year!  That's very unusual for me.  There were only two who I could REALLLLLLY tell had no prior experience in a classroom.  These were the young ladies getting up and walking around whenever they felt like it (womp wooomp)- with little clueless, innocent expressions when they got called back to join the group.  But they were also the two ones who I had to pry out of the classroom at the end of the day soooo go figure.  I guess they're ready to learn.  :)
- Wiiiiide distribution of prior knowledge based on the few evals I got to sneak in today.  No surprise there I guess, but it's intimidating when there's so many little minds to develop.
- Grade school gang alert!  Three boys already formed a rough and tumble team.  Oh my.  I see lots of deep, calming breaths in my future.


It was a full day.  ...And yes, that's totally teacher code for challenging.  I did a good job of slowly transitioning everyone into the classroom swing, but I could have done a better job of laying down my expectations.  Tomorrow I'm building demonstrations of learning centers into my lesson plans so hopefully that will ameliorate any future problems (particularly with my never-been-to-school kids).

Really beautiful to get that magic moment back- when your students go from the mysteries of names on a list to real individuals with opinions, interests and personalities.  How lucky to be a part of their journey this year.

Scrappy Teacher says: it's good to be back.  :)