2nd and 3rd day

So it's mid-week now. It's been a pretty good week. As a sixth grade teacher I constantly have to go over procedures and give directions (hallway, classroom, connections, and homebase). Three of my kids cried today (3rd day). One couldn't get his locker open. "I said it's okay! I'll help you!" I knew he wanted to act tough because he was hiding his face. I went over there and opened his locker for him. He was kinda the class clown yesterday but really calmed it down today. This afternoon I stood near the lockers as they practiced. I just encouraged him and when I knew he almost had it open I gave him some pointers on how to get it open. He was so excited when it finally opened. Another student had a family emergency the first 2 days of school and today was her 1st day there. She was probably really overwhelmed with all the newness, but she handled most of the day very well until the family issues came up. Lastly, I had one of the twins on our team leave his agenda in my classroom. He walked out and I questioned why he left it there. I thought he would come and get it but he never did. Woops. He was so upset he couldn't find it, he cried in the hall going to connections and one of our team members said it's okay. Afterwards he came back to class and I said, "I have your agenda! You left it in my class!!" He was soooo excited and relieved. Wow, and it's only the 3rd day!

Our kids are showing their true colors now. We kinda see their personalities coming out. I've been trying to learn their names the past few days. I know quite a few, but not all 112 yet. I gave them a pretest today and yesterday. They all stressed out b/c they didn't know the stuff. I kept reminding them it was a pretest and that they shouldn't know it or they wouldn't be in sixth grade. They didn't understand that though b/c many of them went home and told their parents they didn't understand a single thing on the test I gave them. Ugh... of course....

Things have gone pretty smoothly though. The kids are learning fast, but they need to work on being quiet in the hall. I saw some of my last year's students today while they were getting their textbooks. I got to chat with them about their year so far. They said they might fail this year. :) We warned them 7th was tough on them. I keep finding relationships between the kids and my previous students, it's really neat. Enough for now...