The first day of school-SUCCESS.

Well, today was the day we've all been waiting for. The day I've been working all summer for. I really couldn't have asked for a better first day. Two of my five students were absent because they were not up to date on their shots. So, it made it a nice little ratio of adults to kids, with only three students there. It also made it so much easier to show them the new routines, the rules of the classroom, where to go, etc. with just the three of them. The three kids that came today were absolutely adorable. Very compliant, talkative, happy to be there and just plain excited about middle school. One of them kept saying, "I'm in middle school!" all day. I kept telling him, "You sure are!" He was so psyched to have a locker and his own desk.

Their little color coded schedules (see earlier blog posts) worked like a charm. They knew exactly what to do. They sat nicely and did everything I said! I rewarded them with plentiful amounts of stickers, but I think they would have been happy without them as well. We did a "certificate ceremony" after each time they filled up their sticker charts. They got a kick out of that. One student told me that his teacher last year never did certificate ceremonies.

I used all of the tricks in my bag to keep them busy and excited today. For starters, we played "Louder and Louder" during language arts. Kids always love this. I showed them a sight word card, I said it, they repeated it. Then, I told them that we were going to start real soft, and get louder and louder. So we said, "the, the, the, the, the" from a whisper until we were screaming the word "the." I'll never be able to figure out why kids love that so much, but it's fine with me because they learn the words! Later, we learned about weather during science. After our main lesson, we played "stomp that weather." I put picture cards of different weather (Sunny, Cloudy, Windy, Rainy, Snowy) on the floor, and they had to jump from card to card when I called out the weather. One kid was just stomping on all of the cards, so we'll have to work on that... but the others really picked it up! I even let one of them be the weather man and call out the "forecast." Another teacher peered into the room as we were all shouting weather words and jumping around the room. I bet she was jealous!

It's going to be so much fun to teach these kids. Let's hope this first day momentum keeps going! We definitely achieved success today. Here's to another great day tomorrow.