First Day of School

I started my first day of school today teaching kindergarten and it was an interesting day. Last year was my first year teaching but I started half way through so this was my first time teaching on the first day of school and let me tell you, it has always been a little fear of mine since I decided to go into teaching. I just never knew what one was to do/expect the first couple of days! Especially with little kids new to the concept of school. I think I was more nervous than those little kindergartners.

Well, as a lot of you know I have two classes, a morning and afternoon class. So my morning class was actually so good! You could tell that they wanted to all be so good and praised all the time. So I definitely worked on the positive reinforcement idea. They are so little and fun! My second class was another story. Of course, I just thought it would be pretty similar to my first class but no. The kids started by all trying to hang their backpacks on the coat hanger which I didn't want them to do and no matter how many times I said to not hang your backpacks up they did it anyway because one person did it and they wanted to do it too! So then I have them find their seat that has their name on it and I have about 3 kids crying because they can't find their seat. Then I have a mom walk in holding her crying son and I'm like, OK here we go! She stayed for a few minutes and my goal was to have no parents in the room because the kids (and I) seem to function better without them. So I told her it would be better if she left. So she did and the second she left the door Her son would NOT stop screaming his head off!!! He tried running out the door and freaking out! So I had to grab him and pick him up so he wouldn't run away. Meanwhile I have a couple other kids crying and other saying "what's wrong with him!" So I tell everyone to try to count to 20 in their head. Which surprisingly worked and kept them busy for a little bit. Meanwhile I'm holding this kid while he's screaming and I didn't know what to do because I couldn't just leave the rest of my class sitting there! So finally the scream mellowed to a cry so I felt safe to leave him there and start class. It took the kid about a half hour to stop crying and an hour and a half to join the class. But he did! And the best part is when is mom came to pick him up he said "but I don't want to go!" haha. You gotta love kindergarten! Oh and of course if the day wasn't exhausting enough, my school planned back to school night tonight! The same day as my first day of school so I was their from 8am-8pm. So yes, I'm going to bed now.

Oh and my favorite comment of the day while I'm in the middle of talking: "teacher, guess what? I have glow in the dark underwear!"