Let the Tears Begin

Alright bloggers, I'll be starting a never ending series about my days as a first grade teacher. Yesterday was my very first day having my own classroom, and my own first graders. The morning was ok. It was the first day so kids were coming in super early which I wasn't really expecting. We got through the morning ok with a little first day sheet and calendar. Then we moved on to a Find a Friend activity which they figured out how to do on their own after I did not explain it very well. Then we tried doing an M&M graphing activity. I was going to go through it with them step by step but some of them zoomed through the graph and some of them weren't quite sure what to do. Not to mention there ended up being a gaillion M&Ms all over the floor!

But basically all of those little classroom management things that drive every teacher crazy all piled up on me and I had a meltdown! I don't know why I expected them not to do this but they were shouting out and getting up out of their seat all over the place and couldn't walk quietly in the hallway or in a straight line in the hallway. And lunch was a complete and total disaster. Everyone ran to the table and called seats and then the table and the floor was a mess afterwards and throwing away trash was a disaster. The kids came back from specials and I put on a magic school bus DVD that we watched for 45 minutes because I couldn't handle doing anything else. Then we tried doing a craftivity which was a mess all over the place and most of them didn't finish in 45 minutes! Also, packing up was also a disaster! I have no idea what the kiddos took home and what they didn't!

Then I sat down in my mentor teacher's room and I cried. I sobbed because I felt helpless. I wanted it to go so smoothly and it was total chaos! I'm trying to be thankful that the Lord is humbling me from my expectation of being a great first year teacher and stripping by definition of a great first year teacher. I can see now that I thought that if everything went smoothly that I would have everything together and we would flow right into a routine. That idea could never be far from the truth! So, we'll see how the rest of the year goes. Here's to hoping we learn something in the next 178 days!