Muh Waaaaard, he took my cray-on.

First week survival, YES (fist pump, Napoleon Dynamite style)! I should go back to last years' and see what kind of chaos I was feeling at this point. Let me tell you....last week, I was EXCITED to go to school. My class was GOOD. They stood hip and lip. We walked in a mostly straight line. They know we don't want to hit people who are on our team. Wh, wh, wh, what? What is going on in my life and who are these children because this is not what I was anticipating and this DEFINITELY isn't anything that happened with the last class that I had for 9 whole months. There was a big TFA gathering on Friday night hosted by a community member and all of the first-years would vent about how awful their first week was and then ask how mine went and I truthfully didn't want to tell them. It was so good! Although today was a bit more of a dose of reality...they were worse today and it was the first day that kids legitimately had to stay in from recess and finished on not so nice colors at the end of the day. Let me specific though...I do not have any of the severe behavioral issues that I dealt with last year. Today they were just chatty. We'll work on it.

Here is the lo down of children in my room, once again good luck with the names: Floressa, Autoria, Jaylon, Tyla, D'Marco, Braxton, Kayla, Tyra, Michelle, Tryen, Cedric, Lebruhnze, Jaquavious, Kenqualon, Zydrell, Maya, Jordan, Arian, Ladarious and Antonius. It's not too bad. They are all sweet in their own way. One of them, who is definitely one of my little buddies has the shortest attention span on the face of the planet and is just ALL OVER. He means well, he really does. He also talks like he is younger than 5 years old, as in my quote.

I am going to hope that this year my students will know that I mean business. However, I'm not sure how to convey to them that I can't stand criers. Today was day 6 of school and someone has cried EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. I just wave them to my assistant...I can't handle it. Sorry, I have 20 other students, not going to baby this one because they "want their mama." My assistant is good about it though...she's MUCH sweeter than I am :)

AND, one of the best things...I was able to finish my lesson plans lickity-split last week (good thing because I didn't get started until 10 p.m. on Thursday night) because I already had them on my computer or in hard copy. That seriously rocks. Now let's talk about what doesn't rock. My kids are going to be tested next week to see if they can use blocks or other manipulatives and count forward to 20 and backwards from 10. What a mess, we are going to bomb that part of it. They have just not had enough practice or time, but don't tell the school district that. They are giving us our objectives 3 week at a time and then are coming in to test our kids (ALL kids in the district) to ensure that we are doing our jobs. I have no had anyone in my room, even though the curriculum team was at school last Thursday and Friday. I consider that a blessing, they are HARD on people and basically write evaluations telling our best teachers (the ones with the HIGHEST state test scores in our district) that they are doing a terrible job. Whatever....we'll see if I get visitors this week...I could probably bet my bottom dollar on it.

Another big event happening...I signed up for grad school classes today. Yeah, yeah, I know, I really hate grad school. But I can get my masters in elementary education basically free, so I'm going to start it. I'm taking two classes, one is in-class the other is online but I have a friend also doing the same one. So, besides teaching a class of 21 kindergartners, leading weekly meetings for first year teachers in Greenwood with my roommate, taking two classes, and helping train all TFA Kindergarten teachers in the Delta...ugh, my blood pressure is rising. It'll be fine, our weekly meetings are over in October and the monthly learning team is semi-planned out already. I'm doing a solid job at making my second year of teaching not as easy as it should be, but it'll pay off.

One quote today, I asked my kids to show me their teeth (aka smile) and one kid goes, "I got me some gold ones" he meant silver, I think, I didn't see any gold ones in his mouth but who knows. Last week was the first time that I could honestly say, "I love my life" in the delta and what a great feeling that was! Let's hope that my class and the rest of this who-ha doesn't get to be too much, but I think it will be fine. And GUESS WHAT ELSE?! I am going to be at the MINNESOTA STATE FAIR IN 10 days....WAHOOOOOO!!! :) :) :) How could I NOT love my life then! Ingrid's wedding in t-12 days :)

PS, it is the GREATEST feeling in the world to see the kids you had last year and have them smile and wave all sweet and such saying, "hey Ms. Ward" so calm and quiet...because rest assured these children were not calm and quiet last year. I had one mother just call me to talk about her daughter's home work....she told me the daughter I had last year got a note sent home saying she was rolling her eyes at the teacher. HA, that's the kid I know! Gosh I love them...when they are not in my class :)

Lastly...it's hot as sin here. Humid as all get out. The first day of school is not the day to learn how to wear liquid eye liner. And my kids notice my jiggly arm fat. Gosh I love them.

Motivational speeches

Well, I figured since lsat year I wrote a post the morning of my first day of school...I'd better keep up the tradition. AND because the feelings from last week's professional development is inconsistent with how I should feel on my first day of a new school year.

First off, see.ya.summer. Where did you go? It was fun while it lasted I guess!

Like I said, last week we had professional development as a DISTRICT for three days. We were able to get into the school on Monday to work on our rooms, mind you it was the first day we saw our classrooms whereas other people in our district were done and ready. I created the motherload of all tornadoes in mine, unpacking as many boxes as possible and trying to create a more functionable classroom that looks semi-organized. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday were spent at district meetings, last year we had one morning of district meetings. Because the MCT2 test scores came back failing and because we have a new superintendent who is all about rattling people and making changes, this was just another to add to the list. Don't get me wrong, some of the sessions were good and I wish I had them last year as a new teacher. However, during the opening speeches/welcome on Tuesday morning, our fearless leader graciously told us things like, "if you do wrong, I will do everything in my power to destroy you." Or, "if this is not the job for you, get out. Get out." The philosophy is to create fear and scare us into doing our jobs rather than making us WANT to do our jobs and help these kids pass the test. Just so you know, my school is the only one NOT failing or in the at risk of failing category. However, in the eyes of the state, each school doesn't get a ranking, the district gets a ranking as a whole.

So, the new changes...they implemented a district-wide curriculum. I have a guide that tells me what I am going to teach for the first two weeks of school The district is going to come in on the 25, 26, and 27 of August and test my students. This is not a bad plan, however, the people that wrote the kindergarten guide really don't know kindergarten. My kids need to be able to count forward to 20 and backwards from 10 WITH manipulatives. Counting is hard enough at first, much less being able to do one-to-one correspondence. Some of my kids struggled with that up until March. They also need to be able to generate rhyming words and identify beginning sounds. Um, really? Two weeks? Did I mention that they have to match all uppercase and lowercase letters. However, when most teachers teach letters they teach the sound at the same time, it just makes sense. Don't worry, teaching letters/sounds is not listed for the first two weeks. I'm venting about it, but not too worried just yet. Their main purpose is that kindergartners should be reading and being able to do all of these other skills, well, my students were reading by the end of the year and because I know what is going on, this year should be even easier to make that happen and get them further. Our goal is to be reading on the middle of a first grade level by May. Lastly, we are all on job-improvement plans, which basically means if you mess up this year you're done.

Well, after those motivational speeches, I felt so ready to get into my classroom and teach my kids and enjoy the school year because I know it was going to be better than last year...etc.....wait, that is sarcastic. I realized quickly that fear does not motivate me, it only makes me nervous. Thursday, after district meetings, we had a community walk in which we went into our school communities, in the areas which students lived and passed out fliers encouraging them to register for school. Well, not only is this mildly dangerous, wait, scratch the mildly, it IS dangerous. My co-teacher was offered drugs, and just hoped that it wasn't a student's parent.

Okay, onto Friday. Our 2nd day of working in our rooms. We had the morning to get ready, thank goodness. Went to lunch. Then came back and ended up having a 4 hour meeting. OMG. I was wicked stressed by the end just knowing that my room wasn't ready and I didn't want to stay at school all night. However, I threw the last bits together, figured that my desk would never be truly organized so I wasn't going to fret about that and called it good. I left that night NOT feeling prepared for the first day, I should not feel like that! Everyone else got rosters of their students, Kindergarten did not. We were told that because there are not two full classes registered, when they come in on Monday a body will just be put in our rooms and then a roster will be created after that. So, the kids in my room today, might not be the kids I have this year. OMG. I freaked about this a bit. That also means that there is no point in learning my classroom rules and procedures because they might end up in the other room with different procedures. I can't give them lunch numbers, write out table nametags or assign bookbag places until a roster is created. The real kicker is that when they come in today, many of them will just come in on their own without parents and they aren't going to know how to spell their name so I'm going to have to phonetically spell it (write it out it sounds) on a label and stick it to their shirt, which in turn is going to make me look like an idiot because chances are it won't EVEN be close!

Ahh...this is why I spent all day yesterday working on school stuff but not being generally excited about school. I shouldn't feel like that. I think part of my problem is that because I'm a 2nd year, I have no excuses for getting it wrong or not having things under control. Everyone says it is SO much easier your 2nd year, I just hope I am not the exception. Time to take our ritual first-day-of-school picture!