Week Two ... the saga continues...

Second week of school starts, and things are in full swing for everyone else now. Teachers are practicing their rules and procedures with the students, and it’s great to watch and listen to.  From my trailer, I watch class after class practice lining up, walking on the right, practicing fire drills, etc. I still don’t know which grades I’ll have yet or even who my kids will be, but I watch them intently to learn from them so I’ll know how to do the same thing hopefully in a week or so. Because I don’t have my roster yet and don’t know which of the kids will be in my resource groups, my days this week don’t really have a ‘schedule’ to them. I come in at 7:30 and have a free-flowing day until it’s time to go home at 3:30. So I clean. I arrange the desks and chairs in my room. I run out to Home Depot or Lowe’s or WalMart and buy air fresheners and plants and stuff to help make the room look nice. I go to the teacher’s store (oh, my goodness… you could just get llllllost in there!!! Love it!!!) and purchase wall banners and character development posters and the like. And I can even go out and grab some lunch if I want.  Cool beans! J

I finally broke down and went to WalMart to buy some shelves, since we didn’t have any. So that Friday and Monday of the following week were spent hammering and nailing shelves together so that our library area would be presentable once we started pulling kids for resource services. I have to admit, it was really nice to have this ‘flux time’ to get everything cleaned up and presentable. The other teachers had a week or so of workdays to do this work when they came back for the new school year, but I missed out on that time because I was hired so late in the process. I’m thankful that the school thought enough of me to remember that I needed that time as well. All things really do work together for the good!

It’s finally the end of the second week, and I get my list of kids just before we leave school to begin the weekend. I finally have access to their IEPs, so I can also spend some of the weekend time reading them and familiarizing myself with their needs before I begin to work with them on next Tuesday. Can’t believe it’s time for me to actually have students. I can’t wait!!!