First Day Highlights

The first day of school is always a bit crazy, but definitely lots of fun.  Here are a few of my favorite moments:

• When my kids came to homeroom first thing and I wasn't really sure if they should go in or wait outside for the anthem (we generally line up outside our rooms while we raise the flag and hear the anthem) so there we are, a big bunch of newbies, trying to look down the hall to see what everyone else was doing.  
• Giving locker assignments to 6th graders, their first year with a combination lock.  The classroom is well air-conditioned.  The hallway is not.  There were 20 of them and 2 of us to help them.  Sweat sweat! 
• Homeroom ends and I have to send my babies out into the world and I didn't get through even a quarter of what I needed to in homeroom...
• Accidentally calling myself Miss Messink several times throughout the day.  Old habits die hard.
• One of my new kids choosing electives with me in the Registrar's office:

Registrar: You marked 'strings' class (orchestra). Do you want to take strings?
Student: Is that where you play guitar?
R: No, it's violin or viola or cello.
S: What is band?
R: Clarinet or saxaphone or trumpet or things like that.
S: No guitar? 
R: No guitar.
S: How about choir?  Do you play guitar there?
R: No, that's singing.  There's really no guitar class.
S: So what is drama? 

• Spilling pineapple smoothie on my white skirt at lunch.
• Teaching my first Spanish class. All we really did was go over the syllabus and class rules and procedures and stuff like that.  But, I got to speak to them in Spanish and they took a group "quiz" over common cognates and that was fun. 
• Showing the kids my new Mimio (smart) board in math class
• Trying to learn 60 new (almost all Asian) names in one day (with another 60 to come tomorrow)
• One of my homeroom boys who just can't get the hang of his combination lock. I think even I have the combination memorized already! 
• About 15-20 minutes after school ends when they come on the PA looking for one of my homeroom kids who is new this year.  
• And then 5 minutes later when they announce AGAIN for him to report to the front of the building.  At this point I considered walking down the four flights to help look for him. 
• And then 5 minutes later when they announce it AGAIN and come find me to see if I had seen him (which I hadn't since 10am). 
• And then when we find him shortly after, at 'Starbooks' the bookshop/cafe on campus (on the ground floor of my apartment building) with a smoothie in his hand.  

Overall the day went really well (I had two prep periods so I even had time to eat and drink and pee, a rarity on the first day) and I loved meeting some of my kids and getting the school year going.  I'll meet the rest of my math kids tomorrow and then the other Spanish classes over the next few days.  There are many Thai students, but also quite a few from Taiwan, India, Korea, the US, and other places and I love getting to know them and help them feel at ease in ICS.  And now, I am home with my feet up eating Oreos :)