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

I Did It!

As many of you know, I am finishing up my 3rd year of teaching.  I can't believe it's already been 3 years!  In New Mexico, between your 3rd and 5th years of teaching, you have to complete what's called the Professional Development Dossier.  It is basically a giant paper that "proves" that you are a good teacher.  Mine was 54 pages and included a snapshot of instruction, evidence of professional development, and a collection of student work.  It was a major undertaking, much more than I had anticipated.  Well, I found out yesterday that I passed!  This means I will continue teaching, and hopefully won't ever have to do something like this again.  And it also means I get a raise, which is definitely a plus!  Thanks to all of you who have prayed for and encouraged me throughout this process.  And give all the teachers in your life a hug :)

Amanda

Kids Do the Darndest Things 1

I have been getting onto the kids a lot lately for bugging me about every little thing that happens in the classroom. Here is my favorite example:

A student comes up to me while I am working with a group and says "I found this on the floor," while holding up a tiny pebble.

"I found this on the floor"?! What do you want, a cookie? Throw it in the trash! I could care less! I don't need a news report every time you find garbage on the floor. In fact, I want nothing to do with it!

Anyways, it made me laugh. I think I should just start posting this kind of stuff. I think it's pretty entertaining.

Oh yeah!

This just made me feel good: A couple of days ago, the computer teacher at my school stopped me and asked if I was a first year teacher. I said yes, and he said that he had no idea. Someone had told him that I was a first year and he didn't believe them. Not very important information, just something that made my day :)

Let the Corruption Begin

I made it. Barely. Ha ha, today was my first day of teaching. It went pretty well. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. It's really weird that I am finally a teacher. I have only wanted to be two things in my life: Celine Dion or a teacher. I went with the more secure choice. I think it was the right one.

Even though I feel that I made the right choice career-wise, I think I made a couple of mistakes today:
1. I let the students choose their own seats, which ended up being a bad choice because all the boys sat together and all the girls sat together. I had to adjust accordingly.
2. COMMUNITY SUPPLIES! Stupid. I thought they could share some supplies, like pencils, folders, erasers, etc. But I also collected their folders and notebooks, thinking I could re-distribute the folders so that each student would have a yellow folder for one subject, a red for another, etc. I didn't take into consideration all of the Hannah Montana, Spiderman, and Chuck Norris (yes, Chuck Norris) folders I would get. A bunch of wasted time for a dumb plan. Oh well. You teach, you learn.
3. Poor time management. I thought things would take a little less time, but I suppose that it's good because I can use leftover activities for tomorrow.

Other problems I encountered were out of my hands. They changed my recess schedule after I had already sent my kids out. Then, there was no bell or whistle or other indication that recess was over, so when I went to pick up my kids most of them were still playing. Finally, at the end of the day I had duty at the parking lot. They did not give me a vest, a clipboard, or instructions, so I just walked around and waved my arms and acted like I knew what I was doing. I think I looked important. Or something.

Anyways, thanks for listening to my ramblings. Now I must go to bed.

Not all kindergarteners are scary

I know I do a lot of dramatic complaining about subbing, but usually it is a lot of fun. On Friday, I was in a Kindergarten class, and for the last three days I was in another Kindergarten class. To tell the truth, they were really cute, and it was a lot of fun to sing and play and listen to their funny little stories. I think that it really makes a difference who the teacher is and how she runs the class, as well as the plans she leaves. Anyways, I am really glad that everything went so well, because I may end up being a Kindergarten teacher, and I'm ok with that. :)