And Week 1 Flew By

I accidentally went radio silent.  This is just what happens.  Over the term break I have time to think thoughts in my own head and then actually write them down and send them out into the big wide world.  Then the term begins and I forget where all the thoughts went...they get lost or overridden or something.  Or maybe my school babies just need all those thoughts?

I cannot believe that Week 1 is done and dusted.  It went so amazingly, stinking fast!  I began the week with a kind of teacher dread that is common to our breed.  The kind that says I spent too much time working and not enough time resting.  I never start the term thinking "Yes, I'm so ready for this, bring it on".  I usually have thoughts of "I'm still tired, I need another week to hang out with my own kids and read and watch YouTube and hang out with my friends".  The term calendar listens to my thoughts exactly zero times.  Our Youth Pastor bravely went to tread on the "teachers have so many holidays" comment....Miss Mischief intervened before he could hang himself.  "No...Stop.  You will die, this is not safe for you to say to a teacher."  To be fair, lots of my early morning work, on holidays, was done in my PJ's in bed.  So there's that.

By Monday afternoon, however, I was over myself and my dread had completely transformed into energy.  My class is just so ... I don't know ... there isn't a word that expresses how much I totally adore this group of kids.  I don't want my Year 4's to go to Year 5 (and I don't want to teach Year 5 again, yet!!).  I want to keep them forever.  They are just such a beautiful bunch of awesome, engaged, hilarious little people.

Best thing this week?  Introducing the first of my interactive notebook foldables.  My kids are really good at being engaged in their learning, but foldables take it up 10 notches.  They were engaged, interacting, on-task....learning!  They now know that not all words that start with 'dis' are a word with a prefix.  They know they can't just whack a prefix on any old word - it doesn't necessarily make a proper word if you do that.

Also, other best thing?  One of my boys has been a bit of a "fly under the radar" kid, and I didn't feel like I know him super well.  He's sitting at the front, closer to me, and already I'm getting to see little pieces of his personality that I hadn't been able to catch when he was further away.  Loving that I get to see who he really is, even though he's pretty quiet.  And no more avoiding AR quizzes Mr Young Man!  I'm onto you now!

Next week we're on camp for 3 days.  I love school camps.  I don't love that it involves a hill, down which exist all the activities.  I was not born to be a mountain goat.  But school camp.  All of the unstructured relationship building and none of the "sit down, be quiet, do your work, why are you walking around, are you meant to be talking right now, is that what you're supposed to be doing right now, what are you supposed to be doing right now, why are your scissors up your nose?" kinds of conversations I have all day.  Because 10yo boys!