First week at school

So I have survived the first week, all three days of it!  I went from 10 students on the first day, 14 on the second, and 12 on the third.  Very curious to see how it will be this week.  It was quite strange going through three days with nothing scheduled.  But they are short days, due to Ramadan.  8 - 12:45, and within that is two half hour breaks, and the PE teacher has been coming around and taking classes when she can.  So the time goes by quite quickly, the students do quite well when busy with work.  They are a little unruly otherwise.  I am spending a lot of time getting them to practice transitioning quietly and pushing their chairs in.  

Things are a little tough for me in the aspect that many times I don’t get a straight yes or no answer to my, “How do you handle...” questions.  I am starting to realize and accept I should do what I think is best and works best for me and if it doesn’t work for the school, I guess they will tell me.  It is a pretty big school.  I am not sure about the other age groups but in year 2 there are six classes with 25 students in each class.  It is very interesting here the classes are labeled by year and a color.  So I am 2 Orange, there is a 2 Red, Blue, Yellow, Green and Purple also.  It is very strange to me, but it works to easily label and know who you are talking about. 

One small struggle is the many little things that are different, mostly names for things. Here are a few examples: 

They say: I say:

Maths Math

Numeracy Math

Timetable Schedule

Folder Binder

I am drawing a blank here, but I know there are more.  And it is really not that big of deal, it is just one of those little things that gets to me a little bit.  Feeling strange to have to change words in my head that have been the same for so long.  I guess it is a little like learning another language.  Speaking of timetable, we have yet to receive ours yet for the year, and I am not sure if it will be ready when I go in tomorrow or not.  So mindboggling to me. 

Things are quite laid back here.  During our “lunch time,” which is at 9:30 am, two teachers are on duty and float between the six classrooms, leaving the children at times in a classroom with no adult.  This makes me VERY uncomfortable, back home I would barely walk out in the hallway and leave the kids alone, let alone leave them alone while they’re eating.  Also I have shown up at school around 7:30 to find one of my boys sitting in the classroom, alone, reading.  He is one of the really quiet ones, barely says a word.  He is also the only one fasting, I have not seed him eat a thing and he has been there everyday this week.  Pretty crazy.  I don’t think I, an adult woman, could fast sun up to sun down, I would wither away! 

My classroom is coming together, slowly but surely.  After shopping at three stores, I was able to find an alphabet to hang on the wall, as well as numbers 1 - 20, and a calendar.  No one here has a calendar set up.  It has really thrown me off that it is not a requirement, I really can’t imagine a classroom without the activities that surround the calendar.  I was so desperate to have a calendar that I had to buy one that was in Spanish and cover up all the spanish words with english words.  Lots of work but so worth it, I just feel better with that in the room.  For those non teachers out there, we use the calendar to work on days of the week, yesterday was, today is, tomorrow will be, patterns, counting, place value, and probably more that I can’t think of now.  It is just such a nice routine that I really love about the primary grades.  

This has turned out to be quite the long post, and now I have to get to bed, to face the new week.  Another new thing to adjust to: Sunday being the first day of the work week.  Getting up extra early, to catch a cab at 5:30 instead of catching the 7 o’clock bus.  Hopefully this early bird will catch the worm.