I think I am in love

First sorry for no pictures. My camera is dead so no pictures yet but I have some and they will come.

Seriously though I think I love my class this year. The last two years I have been shall we say challenged by the majority of my students. This year I am the only ELL teacher in my school, so more than half of my students are considered ELL. That means that genuinely they are quiet and polite. I am so lucky! I only began school this past Thursday so I have only been with my loves for two days. That means they could still be in the honeymoon period. Also I had 29 students last year and this year I only have 20!!! I have never had this small of a class. So excited!!

In the short week we have had I feel like I got some important stuff done. Thursday we had an assembly at 10 which really made the morning difficult to get anything done since the students stopped arriving by 9. (The assembly was for service dogs since we have a 4th grader with diabetes who has a service dog this year. Quite important assembly to teach the students not to interfere with the service dog.) I am eternally grateful to the blog world for all their A-M-A-Z-I-N-G ideas. I am doing a space theme this year so I purchased Abby's Astronaut Packet. My students made the most adorable astronauts and then wrote 3 sentences why they were stars. I was super impressed with their writing, too. Most remembered capitals and periods and some began their sentences with "I am a star because..." instead of "Because I am nice." We also made her Spaceship glyphs during math. Really showed me who can trace, cut, glue. This glyph even reviews tally marks and graphing.

Additionally we read "The Monster Who Came To School" to discuss rules. Afterwards we came up with our rules and they did a wonderful job trying to make the rules positive instead of saying "No hitting" they said "Keep hands to yourself." Next we made clouds with our hopes and dreams for the year. I got this wonderful idea forever go and I can't remember who I got it from. I apologize because it is my favorite. I would say the students favorite is singing "Tootie Ta". If you don't know it, look it up on youtube. It is hysterical! We do a song/dance break at least once a day and they crack up whenever we break. We always discuss beforehand that after our break they have to get right back to work when we are done.

I am excited for the year and hope that this honeymoon period lasts a lifetime :)

One VERY small step

Today was the first day for teachers. Today was the day to begin the year with a smile. Begin the day with excitement for the new year. I walked into my classroom, hoping that at least my furniture was out, ready to begin the cleaning process. When I saw that the room was the same as I left it, not started, the tears began flowing. It was quite pathetic, but completely unavoidable. As of Tuesday there were about 6 of us whose rooms had not been started. Today there was one; me! I tried my best to smile in fear that tears would appear if I didn't and I helped everyone else whose rooms were JUST finished. The reason I write this is not to complain, because that is not me. I am writing to say how much I L-O-V-E the people I work with. They were there with hugs, smiles, and support. So many people offering their free time and labor day weekends to help me when my room becomes ready. I can't even begin to say how nice it is to feel supported.

And my small step that you are wondering... That came at 3:30 today when the most apologetic custodians (Who are not to blame) began moving things out my room to begin the cleaning process and vowed to stay until it was finished tonight. (There was minor construction done in our school that ended later than planned which pushed the cleaning back WAY late)

PS- For all those Dunkin Donuts fans, I had the world's longest order this morning. I swear! Think food shopping receipt. But hey we needed our coffee :)