The First Day

Today was the first day with students.  I had one.  One student.  I have three on my list.  One started today.  One starts on Monday.  The other starts in September.  The one I had today is four.  She is very sweet, fairly quiet, wants to please.   The other two are new three year olds and will be much more challenging, I guarantee it.

My classroom is all special education.  In one way I'm ok with it.  I won't have brand new three year olds with a disability in the same classroom as a girl who is reading and understanding (understanding is actually the key).  I also won't have any models.  Finding simple activities is actually going to be more difficult than I thought it would be.  It's mostly a change in mindset, I think.  I could find activities for my kids in Bellevue and then adapted them.  I'll need to start lower than I did before from what I understand of these kids so far.

This week, I don't have an aide either.  What's the point (to some extent) when there's only one kid.  It would be nice for liability purposes, but oh well.  I said I wanted one on Monday when the other kid starts.  For the first part of the year, the aide I'll have is actually a sub, but she's the aide in the morning (the classes have different aides).  The district is very short on SPED aides this year.  I guess they've started the hiring process, but of course it takes awhile.  Can't say I'm terribly impressed since they've known about some of the vacancies for a long time and we just had SUMMER when there was all this TIME without kids.

I actually spent the morning sort of doing work.  I printed stuff out, made lists, wrote a parent letter (not a good one, but something that will do for now).  I still need to do lesson plans for this week and next week.  I miss my scholastic books the most out of all my school stuff back in Vermillion.  I think I might have Mom start sending me some, through USPS flat rate boxes or something.  Books are heavy which means they'll be expensive to mail.  I did a quick Scholastic book order today.  I wanted a timer like the one I had in Bellevue and then I ordered some eBooks as well as two actual books.  There are such limited supplies at this school.  Teachers are responsible for everything it seems.  Like bring your own copy paper to the machine kind of everything.

It never fails.  After the first day, my brain thinks it's done and forgets that I have to do it again tomorrow.  Even with just one kid! I already set my alarm for the morning.  I'm in a good routine for the morning here but all that will change after this weekend when I actually am in my apartment!