Reflecting on the first week

Amazingly the first day of school went fairly smoothly. We divided the fourth grade students into the two classes and headed into the building to get the day underway. I ended up with 18 students the first day, 19 on the second, and my full complement of 20 on the third day. I deliberately didn't plan to start core teaching on the first few days, but rather did some assessments (Mathematics number facts), getting to know you activities, and a couple of foundation lessons for beginning the Daily 5. There was plenty of read-a-loud time, and a good review of basic grammar, ready to start Write Rights next week (tomorrow).

My classroom wasn't completely set up on the first day, and I still haven't taken any photos of the classroom since 8th August, but here are a few that I took on the 8th, so you can see I was almost ready to get going on planning.

This wall is on the left as you walk into the room.

Starting to look more organized.

Yes, all the table tops were clear except for stuff to go to other places, and my backpack and lunchbox. Yay!

One of the two shelves behind my desk loaded with teacher resources.

This is the other shelf behind my desk. I love this one.
Those divided shelves make it much easier to keep folders upright.

I'll take some more photos in the next day or two showing what it looks like now the boards are up, and we've started using the room.

I have had one major challenge. A couple of days before school started, my new assistant decided that she didn't think she could work with me. I'm not going into reasons here, but it is partly my own fault for showing frustration when she didn't get something. A new assistant has been found, but is not going to be starting straight away, so for the next 3-4 weeks, I'm going to be managing on my own. I'm fortunate that my special needs student has her own assistant, and that young lady has been very helpful with a few things like escorting the students to and from lunch and recess. Others have also helped out in various ways, but there are limits. The other fourth grade assistant is going to be having very big Khmer classes until the new assistant comes, so I need to be very appreciative of her as well. I know that in Australia, having a full-time teaching assistant is probably unheard of, so I'm not complaining too much, but it is going to stretch me. At this point in time I've very glad I only have 20 students this year.

Now I've still got a few jobs to do before I can go to bed in order to be really ready for the coming week. so I'd better post this and get on with those jobs.

First Day Fun

Just a quick post to let everyone know I survived the first day of school today. I have 22 students on my roll, of whom 20 were in attendance today. It's going to be a great year, and I'm looking forward to seeing this group of students show just how great they can be. They just loved the fact that I gave them a test on the first day of school (kidding), and also handed out homework on the first day. I'm such a mean teacher, but with only 7 full weeks in the first 16 weeks of the school year I have to make every day count. Looking forward to a good night's sleep (I've earned it), and another day of fun and learning tomorrow.

Ready, set ...

This time tomorrow the first day will be over! Am I ready? Well, as much as I'm going to be. I do have a plan for tomorrow, which is a good thing. Hopefully it's a realistic plan, although better to overplan than underplan I say, especially where kids are concerned. If you have a plan, you can always diverge from it. If you have no plan at all, then you set yourself up for failure. The key to having a plan is to be sure it's flexible. Yep, you heard me correctly! The plan has to be flexible. There are so many variables on the first day of school, not the least of which is the children. With 23 children in my class for day one it's going to be a very full classroom. It will be really important that we have homes for everything, and that everything is returned to its home as soon as we finish with it. So check back tomorrow, or in a few days to see how that first day of school went, and whether we stuck to the plan or were flexible or both!

One down, many more to go!

What do you get when you put 20 children in one classroom with a teacher and an assistant? Organised chaos! Not really. Actually we had a good day, although it was a little frustrating to be missing 20% of the class. At least I had no students in tears today, unlike my housemate who teachers pre-school 3 year olds and had 4 of them in tears. Hopefuly tomorrow we'll be down to one missing student, and since he's not expected until September sometime it will a matter of just getting on with the job! As I anticipated, I completed a fraction of the tasks that I had planned to do, but that's OK. Better that, than running out of things to do and have bored children on my hands. I now know who all my students will be, and am finally able to print labels, and finalise the filing cabinet and class lists. Tomorrow will be another busy day, so I'm heading to bed very soon, but I wanted to let those who are reading this know that day one went well. Thanks to all who have been praying. Karen