First Official Day as Ms. W

So, even though I have been in the classroom for a week, I consider today my "Ms. W coming out party." I teach the lesson between lunch and dismissal and you can only imagine the type of behavioral management I'll be dealing with this summer. They are excited to learn .. but it's going to be hard. I feel like I spent an equal amount of time instructing students to stop talking and pay attention as I do actually teaching.

Positive highlights of my first day (funny/not so great to follow):
1. One student wrote me a letter that said "Ms. W = my favorite teacher." (I later found out that she also wrote one to the rest of my co-teachers.)

2. Students actually call me Ms. W. We practiced pronunciation a few times - but most of them got it.

3. Half the class understood "quadrilateral" by the end of the class.

Areas of growth:
1. Well, I wish I had some feedback to share.. but no one showed up to observe me today. This probably means that half of the administration will be present tomorrow. However, today, my faculty advisor was away on a job interview, my co-teacher was MIA and my CM advisor was observing another teacher. I.E. I had the class to myself. (The consensus at dinner was that this may actually be illegal.)

2. Because I had the class to myself, I really had no idea what to do when one of my students told me she was about to get sick. I did what I could to keep her in class, but the students around her got nervous she was going to vomit on them. So.. I opened the door. Pulled a "Can anyone in this hallway here me?!" and finally, someone told me that there is no nurse on duty this summer and my best bet was to send her to the office. I looked incompetent but I know that I can't leave a group of kids in the classroom by themselves.

3. Teaching between lunch and dismissal is going to be rough, but the kids will get it down. I didn't smile today (that was really hard, for the record.)

4. Because my kiddies were having issues following directions and ran to the door, I made them line up again. Little did I know that the school buses left at 12:30.. not that we dismissed at 12:30. So.. my class sort of missed their school bus home. And by sort of, they definitely did. I got a nice yelling at from the principal. She had to call the bus driver and she made an illegal K turn down the street to come back for the class. Go ahead.. laugh. I consider it my first big uh oh - but there is a learning curve .. right? So.. that was that. Now I know.

More lesson planning to do tonight. Stephen called to say that he'll be in Evanston for graduation so that was realllllly exciting news!! I haven't seen him since December and who knows when he'll make the trip from Michigan to Tennessee.

I'm teaching the second half of my shapes lesson tomorrow. I am interested to grade homework and see if my students actually comprehended it. I think the hardest part will be spelling - they seemed to get edges and vertices, but that doesn't really matter when you can't spell trapezoid or hexagon. Generally, today was fun and the kids are fantastic. They have so much energy and I just want them to divert that energy into school work. My plan tonight is to find a strategy that makes them love school. Even though I had some freshman errors today, I'm picking my head up and going in tomorrow stronger and more prepared! After just 2 hours today, I am starting to see what works and doesn't work. Literally, every day will be a learning experience.
Day 1 down - two years to go!