Start of Something New

Wow! It has been a great summer. Too bad I didn't write much about it. Just quick some of the things I did: I went To Star Valley, WY (twice), Blackfoot, ID, Lagoon (a few times), Provo, and many other activities. It has been a fun and busy summer. I worked at school for a couple of weeks before my official start date. I also taught a bunch of Special Education Teachers new ways to teach math.

I started at school on the 17th. I spent the first week trying to get my world in order. I kept describing to people how I felt: Teaching 3rd grade scared me. Setting up my classroom didn't. When I started sixth grade it was the other way around. I knew what to do with 6th graders, I had taught them plenty of times before. 3rd grade. . . I don't know what to do with them. How often do you let them go to the restroom in a day? What do they talk about? They don't find my jokes funny. What do I do? Well, back-to-school night came and I was REALLY nervous. Like to the point I wanted to throw up. Parents seem scary to me, with all the problems I had with parents last year. I really wanted to skip the whole meet parents and start teaching. But, I made it through the night, without throwing up and I decided the kids were really cute. And I had a few parents who were very supportive of me and the classroom. "Ok," I thought to myself, "I can do this." But, I still didn't know what to do with third graders. The weekend before the offical start of school I kind of avoided figuring out what I should do the first day of school, until Sunday night. Where the idea just kind of came to me.
The first day was pretty successful. The first week has been pretty successful. I am just having a hard time adjusting to all the new stuff and how to teach 3rd grade. I have to be nice and I can't tell all my jokes. . .or say my random things. The 3rd graders just don't get it. I realized on Friday, as my class was walking down the hall to lunch, they are the best behaved 3rd grade class down the hall. . . then I thought to myself. "I'm treating them like 6th graders. I am laying down my expectations and I keep pounding them in. . . Maybe I should let up a bit." Ummm, no. . . I am not going to. Because honestly, I like that my 3rd graders walk down the hall perfectly. And they walk into the classroom quietly. It really makes life so much easier.
By Wednesday everyone was asking me if I like 3rd grade. Right now I don't. It really is two different worlds. I came from a group of "7th graders" and I have moved to a group of "2nd graders." That is what makes life so hard. I also can't say that I have any real experience of teaching 3rd grade yet. We'll see what happens as the time moves on and things really start to pick up.