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| Big day! |
Well, we did it! We survived the first week of school! And by "week," I mean two days. But still, it was two days of learning new routines, remembering lunch times, matching little faces with names, waking up at 5:30 a.m. to get everyone up and out of the house on time... Reality!
And you guys, I have a kindergartener. I know. It's crazy! Violet has had wildly mixed emotions about school. On the first morning, she told me she was nervous and a little excited. By the time we got to my classroom and she got to play on my iPad waiting for the bell, that had switched to "a little nervous and a lot excited." She did great when I dropped her off in her room, she was all smiles when I caught sight of her on the playground, and she only teared up when I had to leave the cafeteria.
The next day was a little harder. She cried the minute she spotted me at lunch and boo-hooed the entire time. I'm hoping things will be better now that teachers don't have to eat with their classes anymore and she won't have to see me for 20 minutes without being allowed to get up and run over. It's an adjustment, to be sure. But Friday afternoon on the way home, girlfriend talked nonstop about her new friends ("a girl asked me to be her best friend and I said yes but I don't remember her name") and things she learned. I think she'll get there.
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| Oh these girls. |
Annie, in the meantime, is still adjusting to back to school. Poor friend has cried at every drop-off, and it doesn't help that while she's new to being back at daycare in general,
everyone is new to her room. So everyone is just as sad as she is. Oh, those poor teachers! At least none of my first graders have cried! But she's happy as can be when I pick her up, so I'm not sweating it.
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| Violet and her teacher, Ms. Howington, on the first day of kindergarten! |
And as for me, well I'm back at it in first grade! This year we have nine on our team, up from seven last year. Everyone stuck around, and our two parapros from last year got their own classrooms, so we are a solid team. We know each other well, we love each other and work well together. It's going to be an interesting year... We had to split onto two different hallways, and two different planning periods. Due to being the co-taught class that has to acquiesce to the special education schedule, I end up having my planning period while everyone else on my hallway is still teaching. So I'm feeling a little lonely this year. Although, due to being the co-taught class, I also have a special education teacher coming in to teach with me for three different segments each day, so perhaps I won't be too lonely after all. And that will be the biggest change of all for me this year - co-teaching. I'm hoping it will be a year where I learn a lot, grow a lot, get challenged and stretched and gain a lot of confidence... I never saw myself as a special education teacher, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it, two days into this year. But I'm taking it as it comes. I'm lucky that my co-teacher is a former first grade teacher, in the classroom next to me, actually. So she knows our material and we know each other and I'm hopeful it will be a good year.
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| First grade - we're number one! Literally. Get it? |
