Musings on Day 2

2 days down.  I'm too exhausted to write a true entry (mostly because I just stuffed my face with a veggie burger and fries from my favorite local burger joint), but wanted to share a list of my observations and thoughts so far...

• This class seems less chatty than last year, but I'm sure this is part of their grand scheme to get me to let my guard down before exploding in chatter next week...
• Seems like I have a great group of girls this year and probably won't have to worry about them trash talking each other by writing on bathroom walls (oh last year...), at least I hope...
• Might have more trouble with the boys this year...how I miss my handful of chill boys from last year who managed to mellow the others out most of the time!
• Some of my kids are low.  I mean L O W.  I have my work cut out for me...
• I've decided that this week I'm not worried about the aforementioned statement and am focusing on "training" them in all my routines
• Routines = life blood of a smooth running classroom.  I can already see the difference from last year.
• It's important to follow through with logical consequences right from the get go.  Which is why we spent time practicing walking in the hallway today...
• Our first day of Read to Self left us with 1 1/2 minutes of reading stamina (meaning our class can read on task 1 1/2 MINUTES before someone is off task--although this is mostly just wandering eyes, we still count it).  Oh boy...this should be interesting.  
• This one parent is going to drive me completely up the wall.  She already had a problem with my first assignment...sweet.
• Some of these kids are going to be tough, but I'm working hard at building the relationship.

One last thing to share:  As part of my quest to make this the year of Love and Logic, the following words came out of my mouth today, and were largely effective:

• "On a scale of 1-10, how good a choice is that?  Thanks for giving it some thought."
• "Just because I like you, should I let you get away with that?"
• "Feel free to play appropriately on the slide or have a seat on the bench."
• "It looks like you're having a hard time getting started on your work.  Would you work better at your desk or on the floor?"

Tomorrow's Plans/Goals/Wild aspirations: add books to students' book boxes based on their reading interest inventory surveys, rearrange desks again, help the kids reach 5 minutes of read to self stamina, be consistent with my consequences (aka actually give consequences), love and logic the heck outta these kids, take a moment throughout the day to personally connect with each student, survive another day :)