First day of school

Happy first day of school, Wake County-ites.

Mrs. Orr's day was ex-hausting. Fo' real. I came home and crashed on my couch. Everything hurt. Mostly because I wore nice shoes and hardly ever sat down. Eek.

My day wasn't so bad. I got to school at 7:15 which didn't seem nearly early enough to get all my stuff together. The first kid showed up before 8, but his mom works in the building. I had a word search on their desks of all the names in the classroom. The morning was actually insane with parents coming in and dropping off supplies and meeting new parents and oh my goodness did I remember all their names?

But the parents left and then the kids were super quiet. Super nervous, methinks.

I scrambled for quite a while to get all the kids to tell me how they were getting home. One student showed up who was not on my roster. One student was added last week and will be self-contained, but took quite a while in getting to my room. One girl cried in the middle of my name game because she was scared (eek) and I also called her by the wrong name (oops). She's new to our school...I know that feeling completely, friend.

We went over some boring procedures in the morning and took a tour of the school and let me tell you what we will do tomorrow...practice walking in the hallway some more.

I dropped them off at PE halfway through the morning, and truthfully, I was thankful for the break. I won't have specials for the next two days. It was a short break, though, but I picked them up and we went over MORE procedures, labeled folders (which was much harder than I had expected), and then went to lunch. Of course, I 1) went down the wrong stairwell and 2) forgot their lunch numbers in my room upstairs, so I had to leave them with another teacher while the principal was hanging out in the cafeteria and run upstairs to get them. We were in the lunch line for about 20 minutes because of the backup of classes-so many kids without money and lunch numbers.

We finally got into the cafeteria and I wolfed down a tuna sandwich and some raisins, and then it was time to line up (15 minutes late).

Back in the classroom, I read Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and most were engaged. One even laughed, although when I was a kid I thought crazy Ramona was hilarious. My, how times have changed.

I had them write down their hopes and dreams (a real struggle for some and a breeze for others-the diversity of abilities in my class is stunning). Then we went over some MORE procedures because I was terrified that someone was going to home on the wrong bus. One kid threw up (thankfully, in the bathroom). One kid was hit in the eye during PE and it still hurt in the afternoon. The principal was by my room and took them both. I had to send three kids to the office who didn't know how they were getting home.

I ended up giving a little sheet of getting to know you-yes, homework, and they all think I'm mean, I think. Oh well. It was really a fun sheet.

We went outside (hot) for about 20 minutes and then had to run back in time for dismissal. Oh yes, we also were too loud in the hallway and got chastised. By an admin. Eek. Tomorrow, we are going to make sure that we practice freaking walking again.

Overall, I think the day was ok. I'm wearing some comfy clothes tomorrow. Flip flops. It's happening.


In other news, little GE whirlpool hasn't made her debut, and L-Cat Robinson is really antsy. We're hoping she can be induced tonight and then have her little cutie by tomorrow's girls' night!
Please pray for Grace Elizabeth and also my kids. I've got some with some issues at home and in life and in school and I just want to have a good classroom community.