First day wrap-up

Well.

THAT happened.

Yes, the first day is over, and as usual, nothing was usual. Here are a few quick hits from the first day.

1) Our morning announcements are now at 9:00, at which time a couple of 5th graders who apparently had just drunk 15 cups of coffee tore through the pledges, and then we were given permission to begin our instructional day. I love how 8:15-9:00 is considered separate from the "instructional day."

2) We have the last lunch this year (12:45) and the cafeteria actually RAN. OUT. OF. FOOD. While some would see it as a blessing not to be given a "burrito," it was really sad to see the last 10 or so kids in line standing there forever while the cafeteria staff scrambled to find a few peanut butter sandwiches and carrot and humus platters.

2.5) When another teacher and I began asking kids who had not touched their burritos if they would give them up, the surrounding kids (who had already eaten one death bomb burrito) started waving and shouting that they wanted another.

3) One kid in my class can barely write his name. He couldn't do much else.

4) It's cold in my room. I know this. I accept this. The kids, however, seem to think that if they say, "It's very cold in here" enough times, the temperature will magically adjust to their desire. One girl must have muttered that phrase 15 times.

5) At 1:53, we were asked by PA to "write all of your students' names on a piece of paper" to send to the office. Somehow, the technology used to print off class rosters for teachers this morning vanished or was made unavailable for office use later in the day. Oh, and we were asked to send it to the office by 2:00.

6) After passing out glue sticks to the kids, I noticed one kid putting the glue under his nose and inhaling deeply. After redirecting him, I quietly added, "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."

7) If it's possible, the bus situation is even more screwed up than last year. There are two "blue" buses, and they were in the wrong order this afternoon. In addition, they both thought they were going to the same apartments and kept sending kids back and forth to each other.

8) In the beginning, not a single kid in either class could tell me what odd and even meant. After a few examples, and discussions with their partner, almost all of them could tell me if a number was odd or even. *

*8.5) This was the one hopeful sign of the day, as most of the rest of it makes me feel that most of these kids are VERY low. We're talking sixth-round-limbo-stick low.

9) After PE, my second class came into the room and ALL needed to use the bathroom. But we can't take whole-class bathroom breaks anymore this year, so I had to send them a few at a time and work around the gaps.

10) One boy looked at my picture ID badge and said, "Is that a picture of you when you were young?"

Can't wait for day 2!

The day is here!

It's finally August 22, 2011!! This is a red-letter day for two reasons. Number 1, it's the first day of the new school year, and I have either:

a) met my new kids and had a great day getting to know them.
b) flopped through my lesson plans and barely survived the day.
c) gone stark raving mad and run, mouth foaming, up and down the hallways shouting, "The British are coming!"
d) all of the above.

Ideally, the first day will go smoothly with few or no issues. I'll report back on that tomorrow.

The other reason this is a big day is that Learn Me Good is (OFFICIALLY) released! Some astute readers actually noticed that it was released on Saturday (wanted to be sure it was released on time), but today is the OFFICIAL publication date. Here are a few links:

To get a paperback copy, go here.
To get a Kindle copy, go here.
If you're in the UK, go here.
To get the Nook copy, go here.
To see a funny Batman dog video, go here.


Big thanks to Candy of Candy's Raves for already putting up the first (and unarguably the best so far) review already! :)

And thank you to everyone else who has or who will spread the word about the new book release!

Top Ten Memorable Moments from the First Day of School

Today was our first day of school, and if you've ever read Harry Wong's "The First Day of School," then you know that it's best when everything is planned out in advance, and there are no major surprises. This would be pretty much the total opposite of my school's first day of school. Also, you may be giggling at the name Harry Wong right now.

Our day was actually full of chaos and mayhem and unexpectedness. Instead of just narrating the day, I thought I'd pick out the top 10 moments and express them in list form.

10) Having people walk in and out of my classroom all day long to check out the air conditioner. The motor was working all day long, and if you held your hand 2 inches from the vent, it appeared to be blowing out cold air, yet the classroom remained at 85 degrees. I'm not really sure why the 2 guys inspecting it were wearing hard hats, but I guess there's no such thing as TOO safe?

9) I was able to offload a few handfuls of my leftover wedding M&Ms before classes began. My morning duty was monitoring the 3rd grade hallway, so I told the kids that I would give a few M&Ms to each student in the quietest class. There were two classes that I figured this would make no impression on whatsoever, and I was right about them. But the other four classes WERE very quiet, which was especially great seeing as how it was the first day, and they didn't know the usual routine. The class who won never asked me who "John and Tamara" were, or what was special about "July 2, 2010." They just shoved the candies in their mouths.

8) Despite the district going to a computerized attendance system, we learned in our meeting after school today (yes, a meeting after school -- memorable moment 8.5) that we would still need to turn in a folder with a headcount each day. We are to a paperless system what Hummers are to Green cars.

7) Getting called out of the 3:15 meeting to meet with a parent who didn't know where her child was. This boy was not supposed to get on a bus, yet he may have, instead of going to parent pick up. The lady eventually went home to see if he was there, and I never heard anything more, so I am assuming she found him. We'll know for sure tomorrow.

6) One of my students from last year coming up to me after school and giving me a hug. I am sorry to admit that I did not remember her name (I remembered it later), but it was nice to see her.

5) After-school bus duty was hectic and hot. It was about 104 degrees outside, and I was out there for about 20 minutes, due to several missing kids. The kids were finally found, but my buses were the last to leave, and I probably lost about 10 pounds through sweat. Also, there are usually 6 faculty members monitoring the first two buses, but today my buddy Ed U Cater and I were the only 2 out there between both buses. Not sure what happened to the others, but I have a feeling it had something to do with our bus duty never being officially announced.

4) The cafeteria ceiling collapsing. We were told to have lunch with the kids in the classroom, and things were delayed for a while, but I didn't find out until a little later the reason why. It seems a few sections of the ceiling fell (leak? gas? bigfoot?), narrowly missing one class of students.

3) The announcement at 2:55 that "the brother or sister of so-and-so needs to go to room 202 to pick up so-and-so." Turns out that the sister (cousin, really) was in my class, and that earlier, I had needed to send her to the office with a message. And she hadn't known where the office was, so I had to send another student with her. Yet here she was, being asked to find a room on the second floor, in the 5th grade wing. Thankfully, at that time, the 5th graders were walking by on their way out to the buses, so I snagged one and sent my student with her.

2) The teacher break room now looks like a high-scale Starbucks. There are fancy tables and chairs, the walls are bright colors, complete with trim, and the lighting is soft. It's good to know that I may not have working air conditioning in my room, the hallways were just painted last week, and our cafeteria may need to be condemned, but at least I can have lunch in style. Priorities.

1) My kids. It would appear that I have a really good group of kids this year. There were several on both rosters that did not show up, but of those who did, there were only a couple that gave me any problems today. One kid fell asleep, and a few others couldn't stop talking and playing. But other than that, they listened, they did what they asked, and when we did a fact family triangle, they completed the fact family with little trouble. I hope this trend continues!

Good luck and good link

School starts tomorrow, so good luck to everyone who is kicking off a new year, whether tomorrow, next week, or sometime in the past!

Also, Learn Me Good is featured today on Spalding's Racket, a British book blog. Maybe people in the UK will start buying LMG, now that they are getting Kindles there!

REDO!!!!

OK, so day 1 of the 2009-2010 school year did not go quite as well as hoped.

Actually, the first half of the day was fine. It wasn't until after lunch that the metaphorical excrement began to hit the metaphorical air blower.

After the initial madness of trying to separate the parents from the kids, the day got off to a very nice start. For whatever reason, my two classes have widely ranging populations -- 17 in my homeroom, and 27 in my second class -- and of those groups, all but 3 kids were here today. Rather than have 26 kids in one class, my partner and I took 5 of her homeroom kids and put them in my first class today.

That group was well behaved, they listened, they did what they were asked. . . we had a splendid first day.

I think I didn't get off to a very good start with my second group. Our planning period this year is placed smack dab in the center of our day, which is GREAT from a scheduling standpoint. However, it means that we need to switch classes RIGHT before we take the kids to specials. So I didn't have much of a chance to meet and greet the kids in my second class as much as ask them to toss their backpack on a desk and line back up.

When we got back from lunch (which immediately follows specials), it didn't help that there were announcements coming over the loudspeaker roughly every 4 minutes. Also, we were still scrambling to find out which buses our kids were supposed to be riding home. Also, we didn't get enrollment packets that had to go home today until 2:20. Also, the kids in my second class apparently like to talk. A lot. And not so much on the listening and/or following directions.

One child in particular really got me flustered. This kid would look right at me as I was telling him to do the simplest things (ie, write your name at the top of the page), and then not do that simplest thing. He could talk to his neighbor just fine, but once or twice he actually told me that he had done what I asked, but when I looked, he definitely had not.

Then there was the boy who, at 2:57, wouldn't put his journal away because he had been playing with his nametag string (in his mouth!), and the string had gotten stuck on one of his braces. Lovely.

I did everything in my power NOT to sign any conduct folders today (though I certainly waved them around with that second class). I made it pretty darn clear though, that my red pen would be out and ready as soon as they walked into the room tomorrow.

Here's hoping a good night's sleep helps us all have a much better day tomorrow. Otherwise, it's going to be a REALLY long year...

Twas the night before school starts

Once again, I find myself nervous, anxious, unconfident, and worried about the first day of school. I most likely won't sleep well tonight, and tomorrow will be exhausting. I am pretty sure that my room is as ready as it is going to be, that my lesson plans are sound, that the routines I plan on going over are solid. I think of myself as being a good teacher, but a new group of kids always makes me wonder if they are going to respond to me as well as other groups have.

Anybody else go through this on the night before the first day?

Encore presentation of a Welcome Letter

For the past month or so, I've noticed through my stat tracker, that a LOT of my hits to this blog are coming from people doing a search on "Welcome Letter to Parents" or some variation on that theme.

So for their benefit, as well as anyone who may not have read it the first time, I thought I'd repost the welcome letter that I wrote around this time last year. Tongue-in-cheek, of course, but you might be surprised at how often some of these issues come up...

*From Aug 25, 2007:

Dear parents/guardians/cousin Larry,

Welcome to the beginning of another super fantastic year! We are very excited to have your son/daughter/spawn in our class this year! We are looking forward to a year full of learning, growth, and development -- and hopefully NOT full of termites like last year. Whoops!

As a third grader, your child will be taking the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) for the first time. Except for Pietro, who's an old hand at the state standardized test. Here's hoping the 10th time's a charm, Pietro! But for most of the rest of your kids, they will learn firsthand this year about subjective exams and arbitrary passing rates!

It's going to be a challenging year for all of us, so we appreciate all your help. Here are a few friendly reminders to help us all get through the year:

• When you drop your kids off in the morning, be sure to actually stop the car before they get out
  


• Remember that school starts promptly at 8:00, and your child should be in his/her seat, ready to work when the bell rings. Please do NOT set your alarm clock for 7:55 and expect to get here in time for your child to have breakfast.
  


• Students are to come to school every day with at least one sharpened pencil. If you can afford a PS3 and WWE Pay-Per-Views every other weekend, I'm sure you can afford a couple of lousy pencils.
  


• Homework is to be done tonight it is assigned -- BY THE CHILDREN! We know that you mean well, but you're really not helping if you don't know your long division from your lines of symmetry. (You know who you are)
  


• Let's agree that a 2-pound bag of Hot Cheetos and a liter of Dr Pepper does not constitute a healthy lunch.
  


• Dogfighting, convenience store robbery, and "making it rain" will not be tolerated. In other words, don't let your child emulate a professional football player.
  


• Please make sure your son or daughter uses the restroom before they leave your home, and do not send them with a 2-gallon bottle of water. Once they are in the classroom, to paraphrase the current California Governator in Kindergarten Cop -- THERE IS NO BATHROOM!!
  

Let's make this a great year! Only you can prevent forest fires! They'll never take our freedom! Remember the Alamo! (Insert your own encouraging catchphrase here)!!
See you on Monday!

Sincerely,

Mister Teacher