Lesson 4: How to Set Up a Classroom

     Well, friends, it's starting to hit me: I'm a real live teacher now! These past two weeks have been mostly meetings and trips to various stores for supplies and cultural exploration. That has been fun and educational in its own way, but I haven't felt much like a true teacher yet. So the past three days have been almost entirely spent in the classroom putting up posters, decorating the door, writing kids' names on stuff, numbering books, and warming up the hot glue gun. Well, now I'm proud to announce that it's done! My first time setting up my own classroom is finished, and in my opinion, a success! Here's a picture of my classroom, my poster of Class Values ("Earn a High 5-B a Good Student!"... my class is 5B... get it??)

     The 5th and 6th grade building has outdoor hallways (my door is the second one from the right upstairs). This means there are windows on both sides of the classroom, which is helpful since only about 11% of the lights work 14% of the time...

     We got to decorate our own doors, so mine is about the "Journey to Learning". Next door, Mr. Newton's door says "Path to Knowledge" and Miss Nyhoff's (the other next door) tells about the "Road to Discovery"... Get it, paths, roads, journeys... we've got some sort of theme here, folks, I promise...

     So I meant to post this yesterday, which would have been before the first day of classes, but internet difficulties prevented me from doing it then, so I can now tell you that the first (half) day of school went well! We had a half day today and another one tomorrow to get the kids (and teachers) accustomed to waking up early and going to school. These two days won't be about teaching classes or taking tests, mostly just figuring out how things work at this here place called school. Almost all the kids have been going to Pinares since Pre-Kindergarten, so they know the school much better than I do. I had 20 names on my class list and 18 children showed up this morning, so it was a relatively smaller class than what I'm used to, but still eventful. We went over expectations for how to behave like a 5th grader, and most importantly, we established what must be done to earn a coveted Mr. Stoddard High Five (see orange poster pictured above). I wasn't sure if it would catch on, but the kids really like the High Fives and I think it's a good (and cheap!) incentive for them to behave well.

     More to come regarding students, being a teacher, funny stories of cultural adjustments gone awry and other fun stuff! Thanks for reading! Leave me a comment and let me know what else you would like to hear about from my adventures!

     You're awesome!