First Week

This is going to be brief post to let you all know that I survived the first week of school. Overall, things went really smoothly throughout the school. Thursday and Friday were kind of crazy for me. . .I think the Father was just testing to see if I was willing to be as flexible as I said that I was. Both days were filled with unexpected changes and last minutes demands on my time. He is faithful and everything got taken care of and I didn't have any major meltdowns.
I was so excited to finally meet my students. I have been lifting them up to the Father ever since I found out I was coming here. My sixth graders all seem so small compared to the other students in the secondary school. But they have started coming out of their shells with me and I think we're going to have a great year! My 8th graders weren't nearly as scary as I thought they would be. :) I think once I get a better handle on what is planned for this year, I'm going to really enjoy my time with them. They participate in class and I think we'll have some really good discussions.
Journalism is still a work in progress. On Friday, I found out an hour before the class started that we would be meeting in a different location than I had originally planned. I also realized that the high school schedule is a little different than what my teaching schedule said, so I had to rearrange everything that I had planned for it.
I had 23 students sign up on Thursday to come to Journalism on Friday. On Friday, I had 30 students actually show up for Journalism. This weekend, I have to cut it down to 18 students so that I don't go crazy trying to keep track of 30 students and the work they're doing for the newspaper.
One nice thing is that we have two days of ESL training this coming Monday and Tuesday. I'm looking forward to it and hoping to get some practical information to use with my students. They all speak pretty good English, but for 80% of them, English is their second language. And, as any teacher will tell you, it's easier to go to school for an inservice than it is to go to school to teach. So even though, we don't have the day off. . .I'm still hoping to get a lot of work done as far as planning goes!
I'll try and post again tomorrow with some other stories from the week. . .until then, enjoy your weekend!