First Day of School!

Yesterday I came to the point where I didn’t really know what else to do to prepare for the big FIRST DAY. Which was kind of scary. When there’s nothing left to do, all you can do is wait. The same was true this morning. It felt a little bit like being the new kid in school: not quite sure who to talk to, where to be, what to do with myself. But then the day started, and once things were rolling I settled in.

Today I had four lovely students. All 5^th grade. More are coming at different points during the semester, but today there were just four. Two boys, two girls. Two from Korea, one from Zimbabwe, and one from the states. They are an excellent bunch.

The highlight was definitely the art project at the end of the day. On Friday we are having a school dedication/convocation and each class will present something (a song, bible verse, or poem) and our project is a class art project. The project is a mixed media collage of a tree (that perhaps looks vaguely like an acacia) made from all kinds of things scavenged from the art closet. I even grabbed wood shavings from the new construction in Becky’s classroom, so there will be little bits of the school right in our art! Today everyone was on the floor tracing out the outline and filling in the trunk and branches with newspaper and construction paper. I think it’s going to look pretty awesome when it’s finished. I was honestly a little nervous about teaching art (I don’t even know the last time I did anything that artistic) but the students love it, and it made for a lovely wrap up of the day. I'll post pictures once it's finished. (I keep promising pictures...one of these days.)

The rest of the day went well. It seemed to fly by, really. And I’m definitely learning tons about the pacing of an elementary classroom. I think they got a little bored at some points today. Ooops. But that was mostly the set-up type things…setting class rules and expectations, explaining routine, etc. I’m really emphasizing with them the idea that they are role models for the school, and one thing they got to do to go along with that was make a scavenger hunt for the 3^rd and 4^th grade. They loved thinking of clues and hiding them around school. And best of all it meant Miss Carpenter and I didn’t have to write a scavenger hunt!

Overall it seemed to be a very successful first day school wide. Everyone was all settled into their rooms (which was no small miracle), the 3 and 4 year olds only seemed to cry occasionally, and everyone appeared happy at the end of the day.

Tomorrow, of course, is when my really work begins. The introductions and get-to-know-yous are done, so we are jumping straight into our math curriculum, reading testing, writing workshop, and history lessons. One down, 179 to go. And so it begins…