First Week Down!

Hi everyone! I have just finished my first week at school and thought I would show you my grade. I have 22 children and they are very sweet. I have been handing out little koalas for good behavior and they have been loving it. We went to a production this afternoon at the local theatre called Seussical which was based on all the stories of Dr.Suess. The local high school put it on and it was very clever. They have been playing all week to the local community as well as to schools. As usual the first week of school has been very hectic. Lots of new jargon to learn and lots was being thrown around at the staff meeting. All I know is I have to have running records and a writing piece completed and assessed within 2 weeks. Consequently John has offered to come and help me ( I think he regrets offering because I took him up on the offer straight away). Lots of differences in how the school runs. They have two 40 minute breaks of which 20 minutes is spent eating and 20 outside playing. 95% of the children catch a bus so afterschool you have bus duty where they all gather in the gym under the headings of their bus number. A grade 6 student marks their names off and a teacher has to sign. Then a teacher stands at the door and yells out the bus number and they all get up and go out to the bus where another teacher makes sure they get on safely. The noise is unbelievable but very organised. The grade 6 students have lots of responsibility. Consequently I have 2 outside lunch duties( a highlight in this cold!!!), one indoor lunch duty and 2 afterschool bus duties. I have only one day without some sort of duty. They have the old milk deliveries and each moring you have to find out what sort of milk or juice they want. On Wednesdays they have a pizza day and the pizzas arrive at your door and you have to look at the sheet and hand out the type of pizza pieces the children ordered. They don't have a canteen so I suppose pizza day replaces that. The staff are really friendly but unfortunately they don't plan together( I am really happy about that). They have French Immersion so I am the only grade 2 English class and the other grade 3 teacher is nice but unless I ask her questions she is letting me do my own thing. The principal is lovely and has come into my room lots to check how I am going. He came to apologise for the staff meeting going so long and has been great at trying to get John on the supply list. He said he will keep bugging the department. I have lots of problems in my grade and for most of the day have 2 other adults in the grade with me which was daunting on the first day as I had no idea what I was doing!!! I have a child with severe cerebal palsy, a child with hearing problems( I have to wear a monitor), she also has speech and learning difficulties, a diagnosed ADHD girl who is in foster care and an undiagnosed ADHD child who has not completed a piece of work all week. There are quite a few children who are very weak academically so I have had to modify what I do so they can at least complete the task. The other day the little ADHD girl had not taken her medication and was wandering all over the place and one of my aids had both of them trying to get them to sit down and do something. It was hysterical!! In the end I put one of them on the computer so she could survive. The teacher I am replacing has left on maternity leave and has been terrific at trying to help me and has come in to talk about what I need to do. The curriculum is very structured and you can't really work as one grade. The principal was great and said not to worry about doing 2 different science or social studies units so that was good. We had alot of rain this week which is unusual ( we need to shift some over to you guys) and we had 2 wet day timetables. I am actually hoping it snows because the town looks really pretty.