2010

First day of school today. We have 25 (maybe 24 - one may have dropped; we don't know yet) students) in grades 2-4. I have two students named Alex(Allie) and two named Micah/Maika. It's going to make for interesting times.

I had met most of the children and their parents before today, but you know how First Day goes - CRAZY in the morning. Children and parents bringing in bags and bags of materials from the supplies list and the wish list. Dropping it in piles (as directed, you know). So many new students who don't know how the room runs - 14 new to me this year. Everyone needs new lessons, and there are only just the two of us. It's kind of nuts.

Did I say kind of? I meant totally. Yeah, totally nuts.

It was good, though. We did a lot of business and a lot of 'getting to know you' and a lot of fun in the morning. I had everyone do a penmanship evaluation, and we got some lessons out. Tomorrow Kati is going to teach the Daily Board so that everyone will have something to DO, and I'm going to see where everyone is in reading. Spelling, too, if I can. Let's be reasonable, though. I won't be able to. The day is just not long enough. We've only got them for six hours, one of which is lunch. Five hours of instruction time including gathering time and whatnot. It's barely enough time for ONE work time, let alone two. Morning work time is - if we count from 8:30, two and a half hours long. Not long enough, really. I wish we didn't have lunch until noon. I feel for Teresa and Melissa - they've only got the kinders for two hours and fifteen minutes. Talk about cutting it short! I get that this schedule was implemented for the benefit of the HS, but it seems like no one considered how it would affect the elementary. Ah, but that is the Walden Way, right?

I taught the First Great Lesson today - first time for me. I had invited Even's class to join us, and Sarai asked yesterday if they could come as well. Sure, the more the merrier, right? Yeah, 75 kids in a lesson is kind of too many. Still, it went well.

We followed the plan for today pretty closely. Only thing was at the end, when the 1GL went long, and the cleanup thereof was not accounted for, it got to be 2PM - writing time - and we hadn't done movement. I had already told the kids we were doing it today, and rather than go back on that, I canceled writing time. I don't want to make a habit of that, though, so I need to plan for cleanup and such when I do lessons.

I'm going to blog again for my journal, and I may do a case study this fall - I'm thinking either NL or REB might be interesting to follow. Of course, there's plenty of other students I haven't gotten a chance to watch yet. Any one of them might be an interesting case.

I'll try to check in a couple of times a week. I'll keep you posted.