Hmm....

Well, if this story is any indication for how my kids feel about me, I'm in trouble. We finally finished up our VERY stimulating lessons on Bus Safety (seriously, the most DRY lessons ever, but I DID try to beef them up a bit). They were finishing up a thrilling dot-to-dot bus picture, and one of my kiddos was adding many details to his pictures. Conversation that followed between me and student:

Me:"Hey, I see that you added your bus number to your picture. Way to go!"
Student:"Yeah! Do you see the stop sign?"
"Yup."
"Do you see Kelly?" (friend that rides his bus)
"Yes, right there."
"Do you see the busdriver?"
"Yeah, but where's Mrs. Hardie in your picture?"
"Right here..." points to the person he's drawing right in the front of the bus in the danger zone, about to get run over--HA!

Overall, things get a little better everyday, and I just keep praying for joy, love, and patience as we ALL try to survive the chaos that is our class :)

One week down...

It's funny how after one week of working with these little kiddos, I can learn so much about them, and about how the year is going to look. Overall assessment.....it's going to be a doozy. I suppose I should have been more prepared for this, considering it's been a couple years since I've had "one of those classes". However, in spite of the difficult first week, there were a few moments of laughter mixed in. Here are a few of my favorite quotes....

At the end of the first day, the kids and I were sitting on the carpet talking about how we felt the day went. One kiddo (who has already turned out to be quite dramatic) just looks at me and says, "I'm depressed! Wanna' know why?...." To this, I responded "Nope." ;)

There's a picture of Kyle and I from our wedding as my desktop background. I closed out of the file we were working on, so the picture popped up. The responses just starting flooding the room..."You're married?!?!" "Is that your wife?" "You're white!"

One of the things they're most excited about in First Grade is having their very own desk. No more tables, or sharing space, they have a spot that's all theirs. They of course are obsessed with looking in their desks, playing with what's in their desks, and really just opening and shutting them over, and over, and over.......On Friday, I was trying to bring home the point that we can't all be opening and shutting our desks while others are talking because it's distracting and LOUD. To which one little smarty replies "Well, I guess you just need to get some oil then." Wow....

Here's hoping next week is an improvement :)