First Week: Honeymoon

Even though my intention was to keep a regular journal, I let this important first week slip by without recording the events. The first week goes by in a blur. It's as if I grabbed the tail of Dragon, held on tight, while Dragon went racing down hill, gathering speed as we go. Dragon is my image because our first story in the reader is about dragon: a well intentioned but ignorant beast who tends to get into tight jams.
On the first day, I had everything set at school in rare sparkling order. I went to the gym at 5:30 am then arrived at school in proper spirit by 7:30 in hopes of a half hour before the arrival of my students. School begins at 8:20. I was surprised to be greeted by 4 enthusiastic boys eager to begin their first day in second grade. Early birds! I wisely complimented them on their commitment, but had to let go of those first peaceful minutes. They wanted to see the animals so we held the tarantula, cuddled Bubbles, the chinchilla, and checked on the frogs. I showed them where I keep the blocks, puppets and science toys.
The students continued to arrive with glowing faces, ready to begin the business of being a second grader.
I had fun getting out my new toy - the microphone which was delivered because I have a hearing disabled student. I introduced them to the amplification system with a simple explanation - "Guess what! I got a special present this year for the classroom! It's a microphone! I'm going to love using this as soon as I figure in out!" No need to explain about the hearing disabled child at this point in time.
Our first day was short because it was a Wednesday which is our meeting day. The students left at 1:00. This meant I taught at a rapid fire pace, but careful not to lose anyone. I had to go over all the rules and procedures which are complicated. I also passed out a thick parcel of notes and forms for each child. They colored nametags, played a people bingo game to get to know each other, and read a short book. I taught them how to write their numbers to 100. They went home with homework. That was about it.
On Thursday, I could slow the pace a little so I taught a full math lesson. I had to skip the powerpoint because the settings on my computer were screwed up from the upgrade. I gave them a complicated write, color, cut and paste project so I could buy myself enough time to assess all on their first twenty five first grade sight words. I got through all of them. Only four students had trouble with them. I gave part of the placement test in math. I had time to teach how to write the next hundred numbers from 101 to 200.
Friday, we had our Back To School assembly. We had our math in the morning since the assembly would happen during math time. I gave them another part to the 8 page math test. I had time to assess the next twenty five words, now I have 6 students who need remediation. I gave each a set of words to study.
In order to get the time to assess, I have to come up with coloring or simple writing tasks to keep them busy. It was a bigger challenge this time because many students zipped through their work and wanted to pop up out of their seats to show me. I want to encourage their good work, but need to train them to stay seated so it created a need for patience.
My impression of this group is that they are eager to please. I know who my challenge students are, but they are reachable because they want to do well. Both these boys sat next to me at the assembly without my request. This made it easy for me to monitor them. I have one challenge girl from Prestwood who doesn't seem to know much and can't seem to stay with her work. I think I got lucky.
The tough news of the week turned out to be the budget again. They are going to ask us to shorten our school year and take a pay cut. This is a painful pill to swallow from the teachers, as we work so many hours for free and back fill the supply budget with our own money.
The good news: parents of my students have been very good about sending in donated supplies and they are sending their students ready to learn.