Well, we've all made it through two whole weeks of a new 6th-grade batch! Despite the rough start on day 1 with schedules mix-ups and the usual stubborn lockers and terrified 11-year-olds, I think we are going to make it just fine.
The kids seems to be settling into the routine of school again; they are beginning to figure this 6th-grade thing out. Now if only we all could figure out how to use the bathroom in less than 3 minutes! I can speak for us grown-ups when I say that we all sympathize with their rush to visit their locker, their friends, the bathroom, then hustle down the hall to get to class before the bell rings. We understand the challenge, and we intend to be lenient within reason to their punctuality. Poor little things; it's overwhelming! And I'll bet at least a dozen forgot their locker combination over the long weekend. I'm excited about this bunch, though. So eager to please and learn and study and help...... Good things to come this year!
I am relieved, too, to be feeling the teaching groove again myself, finally. With the start of the school being so different this year, it was hard to get into the motions as quickly as other years. I found myself feeling (starting on my 10th year of teaching) more unprepared for this school year to begin than ever! Not the lessons or the materials, but the organization, my classroom, the finishing touches on my decor. Those details were so late in showing this year. It did not help that my boxes of posters never made an appearance since I packed them up for the summer in May. They have vanished. Poof!! It just a matter of replacing them now. Many of those were hand-drawn by me; several pieces of sentiment were made by my students or photographs of my daughter. All gone...... *sigh* One must not dwell on the lost; many treasures wait to be found!
The kids seems to be settling into the routine of school again; they are beginning to figure this 6th-grade thing out. Now if only we all could figure out how to use the bathroom in less than 3 minutes! I can speak for us grown-ups when I say that we all sympathize with their rush to visit their locker, their friends, the bathroom, then hustle down the hall to get to class before the bell rings. We understand the challenge, and we intend to be lenient within reason to their punctuality. Poor little things; it's overwhelming! And I'll bet at least a dozen forgot their locker combination over the long weekend. I'm excited about this bunch, though. So eager to please and learn and study and help...... Good things to come this year!
I am relieved, too, to be feeling the teaching groove again myself, finally. With the start of the school being so different this year, it was hard to get into the motions as quickly as other years. I found myself feeling (starting on my 10th year of teaching) more unprepared for this school year to begin than ever! Not the lessons or the materials, but the organization, my classroom, the finishing touches on my decor. Those details were so late in showing this year. It did not help that my boxes of posters never made an appearance since I packed them up for the summer in May. They have vanished. Poof!! It just a matter of replacing them now. Many of those were hand-drawn by me; several pieces of sentiment were made by my students or photographs of my daughter. All gone...... *sigh* One must not dwell on the lost; many treasures wait to be found!