August 9, 2009

The days before school begin are full of mixed emotions: excitement, hope, nervousness and stress.

I just got my class list 2 days ago and I have started putting students' names on things. I am sworn to secrecy not to share my list and I am keeping it to myself. I only recognized a few names and I am excited to meet all of these children and spend the school year building a relationship and learning together.

Every year begins full of hope. I hope this year I can be even better than last year. I hope that I can implement the new things I have read about. I hope my students enjoy my class. I hope we have a good schedule. I hope I don't have a lot of duty. I hope I can figure out how to use the SMART board. All of this hope leads to my next feeling of nervousness.

I know how to teach and this will be my third year to teach 2nd grade. I am finally staying at the same school for the following school year (well, same district, but we still moved schools). Even though many things are staying the same this year, it is still a new year full of the unknown. There is the possibility that some of the things I hope for will not work out for the best.

In addition to all of that, I have a lot to do to get ready for the year! My room started over from scratch (it actually has every year so far). We moved to the new school and were not able to get into the building to start unpacking until August 3rd. As if unpacking isn't hard enough, I have to decide how the room set up will work according to available wall space and my safe room door. Also, we do not have teacher desks, a small group table, or student desks to move around to find an ideal floor plan. I did not want to put anything on the bookshelves for fear that as soon the other furniture came in I would not want to keep them where they were. However, when the furniture arrival date kept getting pushed back and a teacher across the hall was making so much progress, I just had to commit to the placement. My desk should be here tomorrow so hopefully I can finish unpacking. Organizing student materials, putting up charts on the walls, and labeling everything has taken much time and is not finished either. This weekend I have began working on all of the paperwork that needs to be prepared for parents and students at the beginning of the year. AND, as soon as I find out our schedule, I can start preparing lessons.

So with all of those emotions going on, I am ready for school to start, just not before I am ready!