The First Week

The first week of school is over and we're now heading into the second. This one was my fifth first week of school, and the fourth one by myself. This was definitely the least amount of nerves and the smoothest start to the school year. That is a nice feeling.

So, my students are still in the honeymoon period, where their true selves haven't quite shown up yet. We haven't had any breakdowns, meltdowns, blow ups, etc. yet. You gotta wait until after Thanksgiving for that (or Halloween, if it's gonna be that type of year).

I started the year off with two ice breaker games: Did you know bingo and candy introductions. Both went really well, thankfully, and the kids had lots of fun. We also started off the year with a new project that combines them identifying their purpose in English class and creatively expressing themselves. I also started off this year with a quiz on basic grammar concepts, which most students did well enough on to make me happy.

Here's the run down of my classes:

1st period: Mostly freshman, with a few repeaters. Pretty quiet so far, but starting to warm up.

2nd period: Mixture of first time freshman, freshmores, and a few that are taking English 9 for the third time. Most of the kids are chill, but the repeaters are a little testy already. This class has the girl that listed 4chan as her role model and "trolling" as an interest & hobby as well as the atheist boy who said George Carlin was his personal hero. I have a lot of different types of kids in this class, which could be awesome or completely horrible.

3rd period: Mostly freshman. I'm not sure if I have a repeater. I also have the least amount of kids with IEPs and 504s in this class. From day one, this period has been HILARIOUS. I absolutely love these kids already. This class is full of personality, intelligence (their journals were fantastic) and energy.

5th period: My new 5th period is so quiet compared to last year's! They were a little quiet to begin with, but when they're done doing their work, they like to play Would You Rather? a lot.

7th period: My 7th period last year was pretty awesome, but I think these kids beat them. There are a lot of really smart, intelligent and energetic kids in this class. From day one, this class came in ready to learn & have fun. We've already had some great discussions. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the year with these kids.

I'm hoping that my odd day kids can stay as awesome as they've been, since I was given a full schedule on that day. I have four classes in a row on odd days and only two (2nd and 5th) on even. It's pretty lopsided, but I'm getting used to it.

As for my former students, quite a few have stopped by or yelled hellos at me in the hallway. One of them is my student involvement worker this year, so I see her every day. We had a Unity Day to welcome in the freshmen last Thursday and once I walked into the gym, a few of my former students spotted me, yelled and whooped. That's a good feeling!