I know you're all wanting to hear about the first day of school. It went very smoothly, although my kids were all very honest that it was not the most fun they've had at school. Sorry kids, the first day of school is always a little boring, even through college. You have to learn how to do things the right way before we can do all those fun school activities. I'm not about to do fun guided reading while the rest of the class is running around like monkeys instead of doing their reading assignment. We'll have plenty of fun activities and games later.
In my class, I have thirteen third and fourth grade students. They're all very sweet kids, although they were a little sleepy the first day. So far I've won all the minor face offs, and they have been minor. We haven't had any butting heads like I did during the first week of school last year. I woke one girl up and she told me she didn't want to go to the carpet, so I told her that I didn't really care what she wanted to do, I just needed her at the carpet. As soon as she realized I wasn't going to leave her alone to sleep, she did what I'd asked her to do.
At lunch on Friday a few of my girls asked if they could come visit me, meaning come visit my house and see what there is to see. I'm not about to let kids inside my house, so I told them that they could come visit me after school in my classroom. So after school on Friday four of the girls from my class stayed to 'visit'. All they wanted to do was talk to me and color and make fortunetellers, so I'm up for them visiting after school any time they want. They just need some extra love and attention from the teacher, exactly how I used to 'visit' the same way with some of my sixth graders during recess and after school last year.
My rewards system for good behavior involves coupons or 'prize passes' on Fridays. The kids get to pick a prize pass, something like not wearing shoes in my classroom for the day, or getting to jump to the front of the line. They're all things that don't cost me a cent, but the kids love them. I think most of the boys chose Line Jumper, and several of the girls picked Color Your World, which lets them write with crayon and colorful pens all day. I'm fairly positive we won't all get prize passes next week, but it was nice they all earned them this first week. Now they know what they're missing if they don't earn it in the future. I'm excited to introduce my reading program next week, so we'll see how that goes. It also involves rewards for finishing books and being able to answer some questions about the books they read.
On Friday night (school started on Thursday) we had a staff versus student basketball game. I didn't play (we had enough other staff members I didn't have to embarrass myself) so I sat with some of the girls from my class and took pictures. I found out yesterday that I'm the new Newspaper Advisor, so I'm sure some of those pictures will appear in the first edition. The staff was winning after the first half, but the students came back and won the game. Which I suppose is good because we'd like the basketball team to win some games this year! Especially since we're hosting regionals at the school this year, which is a really big deal.
Next week I'm sure I'll be very busy. I'm supposed to be getting my internet installed at home tomorrow, (YAY!) so put in a good word that happens! None of my food from my shopping excursion in Anchorage has come in yet, but hopefully it will very soon! Four rubbermaid tubs worth of food items will be amazing.
Here are some pictures of my gigantic classroom (For you, Mom). It's a work in progress because the teacher in there last year had a ton of old stuff that I had to clear out and organize. Don't even ask me to open my closet.
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