First day of school!

Today was "our" first day of school and, as usual, I couldn't get to sleep last night. There's just something about the first day no matter how many years you've been teaching!

We arrived early and had a chance to talk to Roxana (principal) about last minute things. Then . . . . it was time. We are teaching English as a Second Language (ESL)so, ideally, the classroom is to be a SOE (speak only English) environment. We started with second grade--7 girls and 1 boy. You wouldn't think a classroom of 8 could keep two people busy, but it did! :-) Introductions all around--Miss Cheryl and Mr. Stephen. They have difficulty with "Cheryl"--first, CH is usually pronounced like chart and chip, and then Spanish doesn't have words with the "ryl" sound. At this point, I will answer to anything close or even just "Miss" which is what they say for their regular classroom teacher, "Miss Daisy." The vocabulary test featured two words for every letter of the alphabet. If they knew the word, they were to circle it. As we thought, the directions are the most difficult part as they require us to use words that the students don't know yet. One of the girls in particular, was good enough at English that she was translating what we said for the other students--nice, but, not exactly what we had in mind? When it comes to spelling, they are having the same problems that Stephen and I have . . . . if I say that the second letter is "a," they write the Spanish vowel "e," rather than the English vowel "a." It will take a lot of reinforcement of the English alphabet and sounds for them to be able to use the textbook. It was the first class after lunch, so they were still quite lively, I think their favorite thing we did all day was cut out pictures from their workbook.

First grade was next; there are 8 girls and 5 boys. They talk very quietly, so the introductions were hard to hear. When they have questions, they ask in Spanish . . . of course, we don't understand most of what they are saying! At this age, it's difficult for them to put their questions into English as their vocabulary is still limited. We will start on lessons from their book on Wednesday . . . and will need to work on vocabulary as we go. It was a good day--we had introductions, finished the vocabulary sheet and got their names on their books.

We finished the day in third grade--only 30 minutes for this group of 9 boys and 3 girls, which includes twin girls, Gabriela and Jimena. This group was the easiest to talk to because they are the most familiar with English. Their vocabulary test had 78 regular words and 10 challenge words. I'm checking the papers tonight, but I believe these students were most realistic about the words they knew and didn't know. School is dismissed at the end of the 30 minutes, so Roxana came to help. We ended with a prayer, putting away books and lining up to go downstairs to meet their parents.

All of the students are so cute in their matching uniform shirts and even after one day, we can see their individual personality's showing. One of the best things about school is that each day brings a new opportunity to open the minds of these great kids. It's going to be fun watching and helping them learn.

After a stop at Office Depot to pick up a few more school supplies we arrived home at 4:30. I just can't tell you how grateful I was when Paula called to say she had homemade soup and cornbread to bring over for our dinner! Thank you, Lord, for great friends who support us physically, mentally and spiritually.

Well, I have papers to check and seating charts to complete . . . . somehow I remember that a teacher's work is never done. I'm glad it's just 3 days a week because, as a student myself, I need to review the Spanish verbs we learned in our class yesterday.