Whew, first day of school is in the books! It was quite the day. I always forget how much the incoming 5th graders don't know. Not that that's a bad thing... it reminds me how much I need to teach them. The 6th graders this year were SO EXCITED to tell the 5th graders how EVERYTHING works in our classroom. While that was great for the 6th graders (they were excited, they remembered stuff, they got right into the swing of things again), the 5th graders were kind of overwhelmed by all the information bombarding them on all sides, so I think a few of them shut down.
We got so excited doing DOL and a tiny bit of Writing Workshop and sharing our writing (and read-aloud time... we're reading Holes by Louis Sachar) and explaining Daily 5 that we only had about 20 minutes to do actual reading. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.
The 7th and 8th graders' first lesson fell a bit flat today. It was kind of a 'meh' topic and they weren't super excited to be here. Although, I'm not sure how many of them are ever excited to be here. I have one folding table set up this year, but it's perpendicular to the board, so I'm limiting the amount of people who can sit there to three. The other boys who tried to sit there were not happy to find that the only open seats were at the girl pods. There were two desk options, and I could tell he didn't want to pick for himself (cause then it might show that he likes one of the girls more than the other!) so I picked a stick for him. But he ended up sitting at the other desk anyway. Bleh, I can tell that's going to be a constant battle this year. Still, it's not enough to make me leave another white table up.
For lunch, we had the big folding table to sit at and then we put up a mini-folding table. It worked well! All 11 of us fit around both tables perfectly.
The 7th and 8th graders convinced me to read-aloud to them while they worked on homework/spelling. We are finishing the Spy School book we didn't finish last year. The 7th graders are a bit lost since they weren't around to hear the first half of the book, but I think they figured out what was going on. We're at the climax of the book, so it's intense enough they want to keep reading even if they're a bit lost.
In the afternoon during American history the 5th and 6th graders and I went off on a bit of a tangent... ISIS. It started when I told them the meaning of culture. Just because many people in America look the same doesn't mean we all have the same culture. Then a 5th grader said she saw a person at the store who wore stuff on her head, which lead to talk of terrorists and stereotypes and life in the Middle East and Islam and how different religions were formed and what are common religions today and how do we know which one is right and are those people going to heaven too and... yeah, you get the picture. So we had some very interesting discussions during our American history time. We went out for recess 10 minutes late because they kept asking questions!
After school I had a Guatemala committee meeting at 3:00. We finalized plans for our last official fundraiser before we leave in October. It's a spaghetti supper on Friday, September 15th, from 5-7. Hopefully it's well attended! That week is crazy busy with volleyball, but such is life. The Thursday before the fundraiser we have a home volleyball game, so I might grab the girls that stay and have them help set up over at church before they play their game at five.
Speaking of volleyball, I have sand volleyball tonight, so I better head for home and eat supper beforehand. My goal this year (again) is to leave school around 5:30 or so. I'm also trying to get to school earlier in the morning, around 7:15 instead of 7:30, which means I actually have to get up when my 6 o'clock alarm goes off. No more snooze button! Or that's my goal at least. We'll see how long it lasts...
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