First week so far..

Oh my GOD I have never been so exhausted in my entire life. Unlike college and other jobs I've had, TEACHING IS COMPLETE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL EXHAUSTION. But, it's already SO rewarding.

dirty deets: 
I've gotten between 4.5 and 6.5 hours of sleep every night.
I get to school between 6:45 and 7:15, and NEVER leave before 6:30.
My feet and brain are numb by the end of the day.
I come home, relax for 10-15 minutes (not real relaxation.. I can't actually stop thinking about everything I have to do)
I go over lessons, make minute by minute plays for the next day, and call other teachers bc I'm clueless about a lot of stuff. I get to bed MAYBE by 11... mostly by 1130 or 12 because i just can't do anything else.


Monday:
WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The kids were SO excited to be there, and we did some fun activities. I was definitely on teacher high.

tuesday: sucked.. really stressful with time management and teaching them real stuff!

wednesday: pretty okay, slightly less stressful with time management.. theres just so much to do with assessments,. lessons, modeling, behavior management.. I did luck out though with the behavior management! these kids are trained professionals for the most part, especially with the right rewards and tons of brainstorming/forming rules together.

thurs (today): went pretty well! I did some parts of the math lesson out of order, but improvised and it worked out perfectly and PROBABLY better than what I had planned.

looking forward to tomorrow.. light on the lesson plans, and then the WEEKEND! but i have a training on saturday : (

highlights: 2 students were goofing off, so I pulled them aside. I could tell that one was about to lie through his teeth and the other was struggling about telling the truth. the second one, however, fessed up to what he did! AND the other followed suit!!!!!!!!!!!! I told them how proud I was of both of them, and we made a plan to fix the behavior problem. ON TOP OF THAT, they shared what they did wrong with the class and I got to recognize them for taking responsibility for mistakes. We applauded them!

Also, a student said I was a wonderful teacher, and another gifted me a piece of fruit : )

Stay tuned for the next post!
anonymous first year teacher : )