School has begun.....

School has begun!

It is always surprising to me that every year I am shocked at how little my new little first graders know and can do on their own. I forget how hard it is to decipher their journals at the beginning of the year (....i.e. what does this mean: a o c o 1 6 0 o e l --I was informed it means "a cool dog"......duh, what was I thinking?!?!)......
how hard it is for them to hold their pencil correctly and form the letters (.....I have a child that uses her pinkie finger to manipulate her pencil when writing)......


how hard it is for them to color inside the lines (.....I think on more than one occasion this year I have seen my students look like the kid above).......
how often religion is meshed into all things (one of our class frogs died and I was promptly told that it is ok because he is resurrected already and we will see it again).....


how often "mom" is blamed for missing homework folders, missing work, lack of lunch money or food at all (......"my mom forgot to put my homework folder in my backpack" has passed through quite a few of my students lips---my response is..."is your mother in first grade? It is your responsibility to make sure it gets in your backpack, not your mothers, she has WAY TOO MUCH to do already").......


how often mom is missed (-----when asked to try something new a little student of mine said, "I don't know how to do that, I want to call my mom and go home ---no worries we worked through the problem and luckily he wanted to stay ;-).....

and how tired I am at the end of the day........

I believe I forget this beginning part because these little munchkins grow SO much, learn so much, and become so independent that when it ends I literally forget how they were in the beginning. I also find myself loving them to pieces despite the amount of work, energy and time they require.....which is a good thing since I think I would question whether I should teaching first grade ever again if I did ;-).

How I love teaching!