So today was THE day - the first day of school! My first ever day of school as...yelp...the teacher! Let's just say I was definitely panicking on the way there (luckily Evan was driving) and up until I had to go pick up my kiddos. And that panic turned to frazzle as I attempted failed tried served breakfast to my firsties in the classroom. Of course it was cereal and of course one of my students accidentally knocked his over and of course our janitor is super busy and hadn't come by to clean the carpet yet. So there is nasty dried up milk in my carpet. Yuck.
Then we raced over to music class. Oh music... my saving grace. It gave me 45 joyful minutes collect my thoughts and revisit my lesson plans and make sure I have everything I need. After that time zipped by, the kiddos and I returned to our classroom to learn about procedures up the wazoo. So necessary yet so uninspiring. We covered classroom rules, how to get to the carpet, how to sit and act on the carpet, how to clean up table spots, how to get supplies, how to ask to go to the bathroom, how to walk in line, how to do a fire drill (because of course we had one today...), and how to move through the cafeteria. Lots and lots of procedures. And tomorrow, there is a lot of review on my plan since the kiddos got a lot shoved at them for one day.
We ended the day with a writing bit on their first day of first grade. They got to draw and write about something that happened today. They are all hanging up on my student work clothesline so it's not so empty and bare.
And that was it. Then they went home. The whole leaving school process caused me to get a bit frazzled since I took forever explaining their take home folders and figuring out how everyone got home (which I still messed up on since I sent one of the kiddos to the wrong bus; luckily it was caught before anything major happened. Tomorrow I'm walking with him to the right bus).
I could finally breathe again. I had done it; I had survived my first day of school of my first year teaching. One day down; 179 more to go :)