monday monday, monday is a fun day

well today was a good, albeit long, day. my students are starting to get used to the routine. it is difficult to help them adjust because things are really really un-routine at the school wide level. there is a weird schedule. everyone has 2 groups of students, mine are 1A and 1B. when i am teaching 1A, the Spanish teacher is teaching 1B. after lunch we switch. on odd weeks, i have 1A first then 1B after lunch, but on even weeks i have 1B first. to make things more confusing, there is a "Specials" schedule - but there is no consistency to it. everyday the special is different and at a different time. so i feel really bad for the 1st graders, because it is such un-structured structure if that makes sense. and to top it off, they all have lockers, filled with notebooks and books that are specifically for spanish and notebooks and books that are specifically for english class. it is A LOT for them to try and handle. and here i am trying to maintain some sort of normalcy in my class, but it is really difficult with this absurd schedule and just circumstances for such young students.

phew - that sounded like a rant... and i apologize. it is not horrible, i just feel like it could be soooo much more enriching and efficient if it was done differently. but, that is the way it is - so i am learning to deal.

today was a really good day. my students were really well behaved and we got mostly everything done we set out to. the most important thing though is, i think they are underdstanding me. i have to learn to be a little more patient with them though - it's just so hard though because we have such a limited amount of time with them each day and so much material to cover. i have to constantly remind myself that it is not about the amount of work we get done, but the wuality of the work. if they understood me, if they got the concept.

so even though it went well today it was super hectic. once a week we have lunch duty - which basically means we walk around the school while we eat lunch monitoring the students. my lunch duty is on monday. also each week after school for 1/2 hour everyone has afterschool duty, which is helping kids find their parents and get on their busses yada yada. this is my week. and we have mandatory tutoring hours, 2 hours a week. mine is monday. so today i went to work at 7:30, taught, ate lunch on my duty, taught, held kids in from special to reteach some things, monitored afterschool until 2:45, came home and ate and relaxed, went to school and tutored from 4:30 to 6:30. it was a doozy of a day, but honestly i'm not even that tired. my students reengerized me today because of their stellar behavior.