Adjusting

Perhaps I spoke too soon about first grade being off to a great start. My first full week has been at times very challenging. Maybe it's because I have always taught older kids, or maybe the fact that I had such a good year last year, or the fact that it is just the begining of the year. I just know that this week was not the greatest week ever. I am adjusting though. I think it is going to take a few more weeks and then I will be able to hopefully say I love teaching first grade. That is not the case at the moment but I don't hate it (like 6th grade). First grade just goes at such a slow pace. It takes so much time to get anything accomplished. Several times during the week I had students that were in my class last year come by and give me hugs and I just kept thinking I miss teaching third grade. But then I would have one of my first graders say something just so cute and I would appreciate 1st grade. That is why I think it is just going to take some adjusting. I have learned that I have more patience than I thought because, boy, you need a lot of patience. I am just thankful that I am not teaching kindergarten. May God bless kindergarten teachers!!! To top off my week, I had a parent tell me yesterday that I probably couldn't understand that her first grade son had a hard time paying attention because I had only taught older grades and because I didn't have children of my own. How dare she say I couldn't understand kids because I was not a mother!!! That was a first for me.

Here are some of the things I have heard more than I wanted to this week that I am so not used to:

• "Can you tie my shoes?"
• "My pencil broke."
• "Can you sharpen my pencil?"
• "When is lunch?" (They can't tell time so I hear it a million times before we actually go to lunch.)
• "When is snack?" (They can't tell time so I hear it a million times before we actually go to snack.)
• "When are we going to recess?" (They can't tell time so I hear it a million times before we actually go to recess.)
• Crying (This is one thing that I don't have much patience for.)

Here are a few pictures from the week:

My class lining up

Making playdough earths

Making maps

Singing a Continent song

Reading books

This week I also had some teachers from Spain visit my classroom. My friend Roxanne, the Educational Resource Center librarian, asked if they could visit because of a grant partnership they have with WKU. It was not my ideal situation since it was just the 6th day of school but they said they learned a lot about literacy and classroom management from my class as well as others in our school. I had told my students about the visit and I basically begged them to be on their best behavior since we are still working on that. I told them they were coming from Spain and that they had to fly to America and I even showed them where we lived and where they lived on the map. About an hour before they arrived on Thursday I had one little boy ask if we were going to get to see the helicopter land outside our window. I asked him why we would see a helicopter and he said because the teachers were coming from far away and they were flying. I tried to keep from laughing because he was so serious but it was adorably funny. I simply told him that they would be arriving in a car because they had been staying in Bowling Green for the past few days. He seemed disappointed for just a second and then said, "Hey, I've been to Bowling Green!" It was just too cute.