Surviving the First Week of School....

I can hardly believe this marks the 7th year of my teaching journey. I feel like just yesterday I was interviewing for my first job. This is my 4th year in first grade. It's weird seeing my first groups of first graders sitting in 4th grade classrooms. While I absolutely love my job (despite the frequent complaining throughout the year and the countdown to days off), the first week of school is definitely not my favorite. I'm a woman who thrives on routines and procedures. This helps me maximize my time and be effective in my teaching. All that goes out the window the first week....and even a few more after that. There is no rhyme of rhythm to that first week. It's all about figuring out your students' personalities and them figuring out you. A lot of button pushing. It's like after a a great year of everyone knowing what needs to be done and when/how to do it (for the most part) spoils me. I forget in August I have to start at ground zero. These little babies are still big kindergartners for a while. By October, I usually hit my stride.

I currently have 17 kiddos in my class. With one of the lowest classes, I know I'm going to be the first to get all the new babies when they come. I managed to get everything labeled and set up. I got week 2 lesson plans done before school even started. We will be attempting to start our normal class schedule of events this upcoming week. I only give a week to "winging it" because I like to get right into teaching. Granted, there are a few things that will still need to be practiced before put into full gear (think proper behavior and procedures for Literacy and Math stations). For the most part, I plan on implementing the full schedule next week. I've got a lot of assessing to do before I can get my small group instruction under way. Luckily, I was able to do a sight word assessment on all my kiddos and identify a few red flags to send to our support team.

I must say, I have some seriously cute kids this year. From glasses, to pom pom hairstyles, and chubby cheeks, I just want to hug them all. Behavior wise they seem pretty good. I do have about 3 that are refusing to give me a honeymoon behavior period. They just wanted to be real and show it all this first week. That's cool. I know what to expect now. I think it's totally manageable though.

It has been great to be back with the girls on a daily basis again. Even though we've texted all summer, it's just nice to have the real thing again. We've already started giving major side eye to a few things....because #thatswhoweare
We're missing the 3 ladies who left us this year (tear). It was nice to have a group convo with all 7 of the #dreamteam last night to recap the first week. Lots of laughter on that thread.

PTA provided breakfast for us on Friday. Like I really needed a carb fest! I treated myself to a Dr. Pepper on my conference period yesterday, too. Mr. B and I went back to our Friday night dinner and shopping routine. We went to Pluckers for the second Friday in a row because #teachersgetfreeappetizers
After 3 fried pickles and 2 1/2 chicken strips, I was full. Thanks in large part to the huge glass of water they provide. I was surprised that I didn't exceed my calorie count for the day. I'm also liking that I'm getting in a lot of steps now that I'm back at school. Our school is pretty big, and if you have to walk all over it you're bound to hit your step count for the day.

Our annual first Friday rotations went pretty successfully...even with a teacher out for the day. The first Friday of the school year we let the kids rotate to all the classes to meet the teachers, for us to meet them, and to do a different activity (mini assessment) in each classroom. It makes the day go by super fast! I think each one of us definitely have our "challenges" this year, but I feel it'll be a great year.

We were able to even get our old fine arts time back. Third grade wanted to switch, and we were just fine with it. The end of the day was nice because at 2:30 we were done for the day. However, it's just too quick of a turn around for little first graders to go from fine arts straight to dismissal. Giving us that hour in between the 2 works much better for us. We're happy to have it back.

Yesterday the strangest thing happened. I was walking back to my room when I was stopped and asked for advice by our SPED team. That's not the strange part. The strange part was I knew exactly what advice to give them. I couldn't believe the stuff coming out of my mouth! I actually knew what I was talking about and it sounded so smart. Like I've been doing this for years. Now, I'm not saying that I don't know what I'm doing in my classroom. I totally do. It's just kind of strange that I'm at the point in my career when people are asking what to do and I don't even hesitate or really need to ponder it much anymore. The words just came out. I take this as a good sign because I eventually would like to become an instructional coach. I want to help other teachers help their struggling students and to work with those struggling students.

It might have been a rocky week for me, but I think I'm going to get in my groove soon and have a great year. At least, I'm sure going to try to!