Monday, August 24, 2009

First day of school!!!!

Surprisingly, I didn't get nervous. I was a little concerned when I found out about some of my students and how many special cases I have that need extra attention (for various reasons), but the night before and morning of the first day of school (today) I was at peace. I'm convinced it was because of your steadfast prayers and am SO grateful for them because it's making all the difference.

Today was great. I was expecting to not have enough time to get everything done (devotional, self-introduction, expectations/procedures/rules, time capsule activity, reading placement tests, reading, discussing and characterization chart on Ananzi, grammar lesson, math placement tests, and science experiments), but due to last-minute changes within our grade level I actually ended up with extra time to kill. (Not as nice as it sounds, especially on the first day.) So we went to the polideportivo (sort of like a covered blacktop area) and played a couple games to wear out some of their energy.

The kids are pretty good...we're definitely going to have to work on a few things (speaking in English, for one, and DEFINITELY spelling and phonics), but they're sweet. They were eager to please (which was nice) but still pretty disruptive, so I'm wondering how bad it will get when they don't care about impressing me anymore. But in between telling them to flip their cards (colored cards behavior management system) I can still make them laugh and engage, so hopefully we've got a good balance working out.

Biggest thing: please be praying for my students and for the dynamics of the class. I have a number of kids who need extra support for medical, emotional, and/or language comprehension issues and I can't handle it all on my own. Pero todo puedo hacerlo con la ayuda del Jesucristo.

Dios les bendiga, mis amigos.

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