This last week has been an interesting one for sure! I went from a million adults in my room (okay, that's a slight exaggeration) to just myself and my intern plus eight more students than we had previously. I thought it would be really weird, but it wasn't. I've had huge classes before and not had an intern so it was fine. Not ideal of course, but we are making it work and that's the best we can do. 

Monday was a special beast. Trying to help everyone figure out their seating and what they would be needing to do was quite funny when I think back on it. At the time it was relative chaos, but the 2nd graders adjusted better than I would have expected them to do. By the middle of the week, you really wouldn't have known any better, if you didn't actually know, that all of these students hadn't been with me since the first day.

It's always weird to get students mid-way through the year anyway because you can't always be sure where they were in the curriculum. It's even weirder to gain a half a class. But, for the most part, the second graders are super cute and eager to learn. We have a long way to go. My goal for them this year is to turn them into writers. To be fair, they are coming out of the native language program so their ELA has been in Spanish since kindergarten. 2nd grade is supposed to be their transitional year but since I don't know how their previous teacher handled that, I've had to just make it up as I go this week. And since I do not speak Spanish, there is no transition at this moment; it's sink or swim :)

But that's okay! I'm all about students being literate in their native tongue when possible, but I'm also realistic enough to know that we test in English. We don't have a choice on that for state testing so the sooner we help them acclimate to English, the better for them (yes in a perfect world we could test them in their native language but it's not an option). I have had students in the past who have come to me speaking zero English at all and by year's end could do some reading and writing in English. They do pick it up pretty fast. It always amazes me. (Please do not ask me to admit how many Spanish classes I have taken and still can't speak the language!) 

It was a tough first week simply because my third graders were ready for benchmark testing and thus I tested both classes. I haven't been brave enough to look at the tests quite yet (even for the students I've had all year!), but I did feel kind of bad being like "welcome to your new room, here is a huge test." Alas, I have to know where they are so we can set some goals. They rolled with it for which I am eternally grateful.

This week will be more like our usual routine. We will begin our new reading rotation tomorrow. We will have four groups (2 groups of 2nd graders and 2 groups of 3rd graders) and my intern and I will parallel teach, meaning we will both be teaching a small group at the exact same time. While we are teaching one grade, the other grade will be working with spelling city and a writing journal calendar I came up with. That focus on writing is going to be so, so necessary for these friends. In turn, we will take those calendar journal prompts and once per week we will workshop them during writing to get some feedback and work with revision. It's the best of both worlds as far as I can combine them.

I'm quite excited for this adventure. It surely will be different every day but I am pretty blessed that all of the students just rolled with the punches and are more than likely going to continue to do so. Can't really get better than that. 

Welcome to October! It is incredibly difficult to believe we are well into the fall. The weather cannot make up its mind; sometimes is super chilly in the morning and really hot by the afternoon and other days its cold, gloomy and rainy. 

This week was a wild one. It was conference week which makes for a couple of long nights anyway but we were also informed on Monday that we were losing one of our 2nd grade teachers. This meant some classroom adjustments would be made. Monday afternoon when I went home, I was a 3rd grade inclusion teacher. Tuesday morning when I arrived back at school, I was planning to make the transition to be a 2nd/3rd grade combination classroom. Talk about a whirlwind!

It's been a hot minute since I have taught 2nd grade (2011-2012) , but I have taught a split classroom before so that helps. Since I also have the training and expertise in working with EL students, it made the most sense to dissolve my inclusion class and add the 2nd graders to my classroom. It does mean, however, that I had to lose some of my current students and my co-teacher. It has been really weird for me to have so many adults around all the time, but I have adjusted somewhat so I know it will be super weird to not have my co-teacher there on Monday (she will be at our school, just working with another teacher). 

Yesterday morning in my Facebook memories, up popped a post about how we had taken our students to ArtPrize the year before. As we were walking around downtown, two of my girls proclaimed that I was the mama duck and they were my babies following me around. That thought crossed my mind again yesterday afternoon as I brought the 2nd graders down the hallway to their new room.

Some context: first of all my room is far away from everyone else. Sometimes I refer to it as "lala land" because it's so far away. I don't see people because we are that far away. (But this room has windows with natural light and that's what I wanted after being in a dark room last year.) We are across from the cafeteria so on the other side of the room from the other 2nd grades.

I went down around 3 pm yesterday to get the 2nd graders so that Monday morning they would be able to just join our room and not have a disruptive start to the week by moving their things around. They had smartly put their books and things inside of their backpacks and have a few other things on their chairs (we needed the chairs so we took them with us). They had their book bags and their other things on their chairs and pushed them down the hall. I'm sure it was quite a sight to see! 14 second graders following me down the hall..and I thought about those girls saying they were my baby ducks. The 2nd graders might have been my baby ducks for a few minutes :)

I forgot how small 2nd graders can be! They are so little and adorable.

I'm not going to lie and say I think this transition will be easy. I think the first week or so might be incredibly difficult for us all actually. It's been a long time since I have balanced two grades and I've always had older grades in my splits (4th/5th grade)...alas, I have a positive attitude and am determined to do right for these kiddos. They need some time to adjust and get used to the routines in our room, but I'm also incredibly tenacious and will not do anything halfway. I will ensure that all of the kids have their needs met because that's what I'm paid for. More importantly that is what those friends deserve.