Joining in for another week!

1. Started work on Tuesday. Honestly, it was like I’d never left! However, it was great to be among the people that I’ve loved working with for the last 3 years, to learn alongside them and to have a fabulous lunch outing. We also had a great PD session on high expectations (which has really resonated with me and some of the other staff), and had a brief look at the Australian Numeracy Curriculum, and reassessed our whole school Numeracy planner.

2. Made my first day frame (below), which I love so much more than my frame from last year! Had lots of inspiration!

3. Had a wonderful sight as I left for work this morning – I saw not one, not two… but three beautiful rainbows on the way to work. The photo’s not great (never is with rainbows – sight!), but I had to share it anyway. This was the first rainbow I saw, as I walked out my front door.

4. This week (due to a lot of things happening in the school), I gained a beautiful little cherub in Grade 1 who requires a teaching aide – which is brand new for me. (Having another person in the room with me 10 hours a week will take some getting used to!) However, I met my teaching aide today and she’s so lovely (and a qualified teacher!), so I think we’ll have a brilliant term!

5. I prettified my laptop. This cheered me up after a full-on day!

In other, first week of school news…

Yesterday (Thursday) my 15 lovely Grade One students started school for the 2013 year. They were such sweethearts, and were so eager to do some reading and writing and singing.

Today (Friday) my 7 gorgeous Prep students started their very first day of school. They’re a beautiful bunch, too, and fit right in with their Grade One buddies. They only had half a day at school, but will be full-time on Monday. The Grade Ones were so precious, showing them how to draw pictures on the IWB, how to make shapes in playdough, how to build really long magnetic chains on the floor (and leaving me to find magnet pieces all over the place for the rest of the day!), and how to do really neat colouring in.

I couldn’t have asked for a lovelier class.

But, I will confess, that it was a stressful day for me. With confident Grade Ones, and nervous Preps (and parents!), I felt like my attention was divided ALL day. I had to give my attention to the Preps, who’ve never been to school, who don’t know to put their hand up to go to the bathroom, who finish activities in 2 minutes, who don’t like to sit down for longer than 5 minutes, and who are eager to share everything they know. Which of course meant leaving the Ones to complete activities with the attention of my very good colleague (and their art teacher) who was helping me for the morning.

I’m back to a balancing act, and I forgot how hard it is at the start of the year with a Prep/1.

But it can only get better from here.

I have to go in to work tomorrow morning to move a few things (borrowing a new bookshelf from my principal, so I have a bit more storage in my classroom), and to set up my new writing table and do general start of year organisational stuff, so I hope to take a few more photos of my classroom to share with you all.

How was your week?