first day

(as a precursor to this message, i am in grad school class right now on a friend's computer. the teacher is teling us to make sure we play games in our math class. duh.)

it went great!!! here are the things that made it wonderful:

1. i felt ready. the room looked awesome, i got plenty of sleep, and i had stuff to do and copies made a while ago.
2. i stood in the stairwell and directed 6th graders toward the cafeteria for the first 45 minutes of the day.
3. one of my former students was with all the 6th graders waiting for a class. but he was in 6th grade *last* year. i saw him and said his name, and he turned around with this look of sheer and complete joy and gave me a huge hug. this is my dracula voice kid, and so when i asked him why he was standing with the 6th graders when he is in 7th grade now. he looked at me and said (in his little voice, which hasn't changed at all over the summer), well where am i supposed to go then? precious. he also stopped by after school and asked if he could play the computer, "just for a littel whiule." i miss him.
4. i have a break during second period, so i didn't get any kids in my classroom until 10:15.
5. had a "familiar" moment when i saw one of my former students wandering in the hallways and i was able to corral him into his classroom. he was smiling the whole time and i have a feeling it was a 'familiar' feeling for him too.
6. my kids (when i finally got them) were awesome! well, i only had ... 5. supposedly i'll have 7 total. we'll see if they all show.
6. the awesome kids had the following response when i asked them to look around the room and choose a few things they are excited about: 1. all hands shot up, waving in the air (what?) 2. one girl *yelled* "the WRITING center!! i can't wait to use the writing center!!" and she was being serious. (WHAT?!) 3. another kid said, very seriously, "the BOOKS. there are lots of books." (YAAY!)
7. this came when they were asked to name some bad choices that sometimes students make in the classroom. one kid raised her hand and said, with the utmost sincerity ... "not doing your homework." and everybody sighed and said, yeaaaah. and the next kid said "cursing. cursing in school is a really bad choice." and everyone sighed and said, you NEVER should curse in school. next was "you should never talk while the teacher is talking." and everyone agreed about that, too.
8. today was an easy day. here's hoping that stays the same :D