First Day with Students

    All I can say is "Man, am I tired!"

    I had great plans for the day. I arrived at school at 6:15 and no one was there so I pulled my laptop out of the bag and logged into the district's wifi and began working on a voki I wanted to use in my class. I didn't have a chance to work on that last night. I was too busy updating 3 iPod Touches with music to use for Math, Reading, Movement activities, and transitions. I also burned the transitions songs to a CD. I wanted to give each one of my grade teachers an iPod Touch to use and the CD to install the music on their computer. I used my travel time to work on clipping pieces of music for special activities. I have a piece of a song for group time, for lining up, etc. One that was extremely useful today was the "Freeze" segment. I just wanted you to know that I did work on school stuff even though I was not at the school. I believe this 7 to 3 job with summers off is actually a 24 hour/ 7 day a week job with 2 months off!
    When all of my students finally got to school, I had a total of 25 babies. I'm sure that number will change this first week. Boy, do I have a couple of lively ones! It is funny how your memory works. Some things I can remember like it was yesterday and other things I've simply forgotten. An example is this. I can remember that when I taught this grade years ago, I could not believe how much my students changed over Christmas. After Christmas, they could do so much more by themselves. However, I couldn't or didn't remember how little they could do for themselves when they first started school. I know that I haven't told you the grade that I teach but I'm sure your getting the idea that it isn't junior high!

    Today, when my students who rode the bus to school arrived, no one documented which bus they rode. (In one of the other schools where I worked, the teachers on bus duty wrote the bus number on the students' hand when they got off the bus. That didn't happen at this school. (This will mean more to you later.) Since I do not have a teaching assistant, I had to take up the supplies that my 13 or so students brought (you know the ones who didn't come on the "Sneak Peek" night. Did I tell you that I am the only adult in this classroom? Yes indeed. I was hopping from one place to the other. My students are soooooo NOT independent! I could only check off the supplies for a couple of children at a time and then I would have to help students with what I thought were really easy first day tasks. Boy, do I have a lot to learn. I will tell you that I'm revamping the lesson plans. I can tell right now that what we as a group had planned is not appropriate for the students we are teaching. Needless to say, I didn't get done everything or even half of what I planned to do. Now, let me tell you some of what happened today.
  
     First, I had parents bringing in students and supplies. I had expected that. Everything was rolling fine. Then I had a student to start crying. I didn't expect that! I have a little experience with handling the separation anxiety and after a while. Thank goodness I have a break at 8:00 a.m. Yes, I know school started at 7:30 but students were getting to school at 7:00 and I haven't done this in fourteen years. I REALLY needed that break! No, I didn't head to the lounge. Heck, I don't even know where the lounge is in this school. I did head back to my class. I needed to check off some more of the students supplies. I also had a technical problem with my interactive whiteboard. My computer did not recognize the hardware. I ran the connection wizard to no avail. I decided that I could make do without the interactivity and I'd call tech support after school. Now that I wasted my time, I headed back to get my students.

    I spent a great deal of time letting them help me create the rules (that I wanted) for our class. One of my students complimented me on my handwriting. After taking up one written assignment from them today, I now realize that I MUST focus on penmanship. We will have to work on the proper way to form letters and spelling. Man do I have my work cut out for me.

    After going over the rules, I spent a lot of time describing the consequences and rewards. My students loved my "Treasure Box" and were eager to find out what was inside. I only showed them one toy - the whizzer. You know the spinning disc that makes a whizzing sound when you pull the string. The LOVED it! I also told them that they would have to earn the right to see what other cool items were inside the treasure box.

    When we finished learning all about behavior expectations, rewards, consequences, and procedures, it was lunch time. I had a piece of paper that told the table numbers for each teacher. I get to the cafeteria and no tables are numbered..... So, I start inquiring about how the tables are numbered. It would be nice if tables actually had numbers on them. Next, I plan to keep all my students in line so that we can go through the lunch line in an orderly fashion and one of my students who brings her lunch told me that students who bring their lunch can NOT go through the line. I sure wish that I knew this a little earlier. I didn't want to be reprimanded so I quickly redirected these students to our table. I was so proud of my students because they were really good AND quiet AND still while we were in the cafeteria. Of course, I was walking here and there and did not have time to sit down.  I certainly didn't have time to eat. I thought that I would use my extra time to focus on getting a bus rider list ready. I would guess that I sat down for about ten minutes. No, I didn't get the bus list ready. I only had information for about 14 of my students. I did all I could on this during lunch.

     After lunch, we headed back to class. We did take time to stop by the restroom. I had forty minutes. I read to my students and talked more about rules for the restroom and hall. We reviewed the rules for the classroom. I read to books to them. One of the books was a big book that one of my classes wrote and illustrated in 1995. My students were amazed and commented on how good my students did on the illustrations. Thank goodness I had another break! It was library time.

    I headed to the library with my students. I reminded my students about what I expected of them as far as behavior was concerned and told the librarian what a wonderful group of students I had and then I left them with her! I had some major stuff to take care of during this break. I HAD to find out what buses my students needed to get on when bus rider time approached. I took my list of students and bus/car information that I had and made a bee line toward the office. I knew that I would find help there. It appeared that the bus routes had also changed. Well, I was right. I did get help and was relieved to have transportation information for ALL of my students. Now, I won't know if that information was in fact correct until tomorrow morning.

    When I went back to the library to pick up my students, the librarian commented on how good my class is. I do have several active students and one who does love to touch others. I will spend more time helping him learn the rule "Keep your body to yourself." Hopefully this won't take the whole year but you never know! I walked my students back to my class. We had the handbook to go over and we also had another coloring activity sheet. I set the timer after I thought they had plenty of time to finish. However, only a very few students were finished. I decided that I would reward them for finishing and doing a really good job. I had those students go to the carpet to play a game with music moving your body. Several children decided to hurry for fear that they wouldn't get to play the game. I did hang the sheets on the "Whale of a job!" board since they had finished.

    Please don't think that my students were perfect today because they were not. They were much louder than they should have been. I worked really hard on trying to help them learn to use their whisper inside voices but this too will be a daunting task!

    Finally, it was time to send car riders and then line up to go the buses. Now, I lined my students up and we walked in a straight line to the buses. However, when we got to the door and there were several other classes going to the buses at the same time. We walked by about 3 buses and then I couldn't find approximately 5 of my students. As I continued around the bus lot, I did locate them on their buses. They had simply ran ahead of me and I was unaware of it because of the congestion going to the buses. This is definitely on my list of items to discuss with my students.

    After school was dismissed, we had a short faculty meeting with all teachers and assistants. Remember, this principal is new to our school and this is only her 2nd day. She had a lot to tell us and I made notes of everything. After we were finished, I hurried to my room because I still have that problem with the interactive whiteboard! I called the tech support line for the board and found out that there is an update. Well, I was put on hold for well over 15 minutes. When I finally got a person, I was told that I needed to delete the software from my computer and reinstall a newer version. I started the process but had to leave because it was taking too long. I plan to go early again in the morning and finish that installation. Hopefully my "SMARTboard" problem will be resolved and I can do some cool interactive activities to help with the attention span issue of my students.

    As you can tell, I had a very busy day today. I didn't sit down except for that very short time in the cafeteria. Overall, I do think that I have a really wonderful group of students. I'll spend this week really reviewing rules, procedures, and expectations. Hopefully, my students will learn the routines and we can begin to focus on increasing their attention span and skill level.