A hard day...

School has started.  Today was my third day teaching in 3rd Grade and all 17 students were present.

They have been unusually quiet the first couple of days, but today it seemed they were starting to become comfortable and show their real selves.  I have little to complain about really... but lots to reflect on!!

Why was today different?  Was it the numerous creative lessons I had planned?  Are they used to more structure?

Here's the day in a nutshell....

1. Students arrive at 8am. After taking the roll call and collecting lunch money, we begin with a walking tour of the school.  "Moses" and "Aaron" were our leaders; we were reenacting the Israelites exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land.  We made stops along the way to recount the events that occurred and God's faithfulness to His people.

2. After returning to class I set up the overhead projector for our English lesson and discovered too late, that it wasn't working! The fan was running but not the light.  No drama, teacher's need to be flexible when the unexpected happens.  I was able to continue the lesson without it.  I just don't like keeping the student's waiting and appearing unorganized.

3. After this lesson I was immediately on morning recess duty for the full twenty minutes.  I enjoyed being out in the sunshine watching the children play.  They looked so happy; so free!

4.  Next lesson was Math; our lesson focus was place value. The children enjoyed a competitive game between boys and girls, though it got a bit loud and rowdy.  Afterwards they appeared to be on task with the independent textbook activity.

5. Lunch involves handing out pre-purchased lunch tickets.  Students pay 100 goudes (equal to USD $2.50) for a hot lunch which is most often rice and beans, chicken, fruit and juice. After supervising students in the assembly line I sat down to eat with them for twenty minutes.  (*note: It's been 4 hours since school began and as yet, I haven't had not a minute's break without kids).

6.  The time arrives where I am not responsible for children. I have 20 minutes to myself; not really!!  I have 20 minutes to organize the next lesson which includes setting up a data projector (where do I find that?), finding out that I need an adapter for my Mac and organizing soil for the planting of bean seeds.
You guessed it, 20 minutes was not enough.

7.  I arrive one minute late to class and my students are sitting silently at their desks, each reading a book!  Perfect!!  It was lovely to return to a quiet class, but I still wasn't organized for the next lesson.

8.  The guidance counsellor arrives to introduce herself to the 3rd Graders; I have an extra ten minutes to myself.  Finally, I'm ready to show a powerpoint presentation of how to plant a bean seed; and I'm feeling flustered and disorganized (drat, I forgot about the soil!!  I send some students to collect it from another room).

9.  Powerpoint presentation is over; soil arrives. I hadn't viewed the soil beforehand, another teacher had told me there was a bucket of soil upstairs.  She failed to mention it was dry, crumbly and mixed with rocks.  This soil would not be good enough! Postpone the planting of bean seeds for tomorrow.

10.  Move on to my music lesson.  By now the kids are a little restless and disappointed about not planting their seed (so was I; but I'm not superwoman / superteacher!!  What was I thinking when I was planning today's lessons?)  It's the afternoon and the music lesson goes fairly well; except for the headache that is developing.

11. Kids are dismissed at 3pm and I'm ready to go home.  The past few days I've stayed back til 5pm.  Not today.  I first organize the soil for tomorrow's seed planting lesson (I found some soil around the school yard that is a little better than today's).  I go over my notes for tomorrow; I photocopy a note to send home to parents; I chat to some colleagues and then I leave at 3:55pm.

Tomorrow is Friday!! Bring it on; I have the weekend to chill out... not literally.  It's been 36 degrees celsius everyday; but I like the warm weather :-)