The First Day of School

Yesterday was my first day of my fifth year of teaching! Yay!

I must admit, I wasn't quite ready to go back.  We stayed busy this summer, but didn't get to go on any "real" vacations.  Plus, this summer was shorter than usual. Womp-womp.  Nonetheless, I love my job and I know 2 months is a lot more vacation than many people have.

Doug always takes a picture of me on the first day (if I looked hard enough, I bet I could find my first day of school pictures from preschool all the way up to today!).  I always feel silly doing this, but I think someday it will be neat to see.  We take pictures of everything anyways.  That's just us.

Hi, Mom!

 

So I got to school and tied up a few loose ends.  A few kids and parents trickled in to drop off supplies or introduce themselves.  After the bell rang and we got settled, I made the kids tell their parents goodbye and sent the grownups on their way (I hate having an audience while I'm teaching.  The parents make me more nervous than the kids!)

I forgot to do a quick introduction, where I usually talk about things that I like to do, my puppy, etc.  Oh well; that probably bores them anyway.  I started off with attendance procedures, announcement procedures, and lunch count.  Then they all came to the carpet for a "name game".  I do this every year, and I like to keep it simple, because it seems to work well enough.  I have a ball that we toss around, and whoever has the ball has to say his/her name and favorite flavor of ice cream.  The kids got pretty creative with "cotton candy" and "watermelon" being the most original responses.

After the name game, we started putting supplies away, and let me tell you, there are a LOT of supplies.  I never have room to store all of them.  We end up stuffing them wherever they will fit in cabinets, in corners, under tables, etc.  I hate that part because I hate having clutter, but we will need every box of tissue that they brought!

A sampling of our school supplies.  Just the paper towels, tissue, and Clorox wipes!

After most of the supplies were sorted out, I had them do an "All About Me" worksheet.  The kids had a hard time with this, and needed a lot of help.  Next year I'll find something simpler.

We then took a tour of the school, during which I learned that this group needs a lot of practice walking in line!  They are a chatty bunch!  I will definitely have to make sure that I acknowledge those students who are modeling good behavior, because that always creates a ripple effect.  A note for next year:  I need to make sure that I ask the students who are new to the school, and put them in front of the line during the tour.

When we got back, we finished the worksheets and I answered some questions that they had written on note cards.

Finally, it was lunch time!  And I was HUNGRY!  I need to remember to snack, but I just get so busy with the kiddos, that I forget!

It was apparent after lunch that I could wait no longer to go over the behavior chart.  I got the idea from Pinterest (of course).  The idea is that everyone starts on green.  With poor behavior, a student will move down to yellow, orange, and finally red.  With superb behavior, they can move up to blue, purple, and finally white (hey, I ran out of colors).  I had a few students who moved up to purple, and one even to blue!  By the afternoon no one moved down from green, so that was a good thing.  However, I am definitely going to have to put some thought into a seating chart.  I also need to modify my teaching style to make it more "boy-friendly" (not trying to be sexist, but I have a lot of boys this year, and it is much more active than my class last year!).

I got a little break while they went to computer class.  And by break I mean a chance to organize my things and do some lesson planning.  This continued when they went out to recess.

After recess I read a chapter from Sideways Stories from Wayside School.  In this chapter, an evil teacher turns all of her students into apples.  The students were eyeing my desk as they noticed that I had 3 apples all in a row.  I played right along!

We then moved on to coloring our book boxes, something we use for The Daily 5, one of my favorite additions to my teaching from last year!  We made it into a contest, and the kids will judge them to choose the winner.

Finally, we sat together and shared what our favorite parts of the day were.  Many students said recess, decorating book boxes, and a few said that I was their favorite part (I'm not convinced, but I appreciate the effort!).

Then the school day was over!  I was going to have them write something about their first day, but time just flew by!  I was so exhausted by the end of the day, but I really needed to get more organized, so I ended up staying until nearly 6.  Doug came by and helped me put my new office chair together (isn't he sweet).

I know that this is a super boring post, but I always forget what I do the first day of school, so maybe this will help me next year.  A